the charwoman's shadow

Sore

n=)
UA,
53

“te on
Dannan eaaa
ATRN

ae

Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2022 with funding from
Kahle/Austin Foundation

https://archive.org/details/charwomansshadowO000lord

BY LORD DUNSANY

The Gods of Pegana

Time and the Gods

The Sword of Welleran

A Dreamer’s Tales

The Book of Wonder

Five Plays

Fifty-one Tales

Tales of Wonder

Plays of Gods and Men

Tales of War

Unhappy Far-off Things

Tales of Three Hemispheres
The Chronicles of Rodriguez

If

Plays of Near and Far

The King of Elfland’s Daughter
Alexander and Three Small Plays
The Charwoman's Shadow

THE CHARWOMAN’S
SHADOW

By
LORD DUNSANY

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
Che Knickerbocker Press
1926

Copyright, 1926
by
Lord Dunsany

First printing, August, 1926
Second printing, October, 1926

>? TAO BOO i: AE

e ee ER »» >o s?’ A A
a> : ` d . e

K A A AOE $ A r ETS

. “e Foe ee»? 22 © pe Raa

O KY E EEEE ep A E AEN

s.’ s

Made in the United States of America

CONTENTS

CHAPTER
JT.—Tue Lorp oF THE Tower FINDS A

CAREER FOR HIS SON . 5

IL—RAMON ALonzo COMES TO THE HOUSE
IN THE Woop 2 e t $

Il1].—Tue CHARWOMAN TELLS OF HER
Loss a ; : A : ;

TV.—Ramon ALONZO Learns A MYSTERY
KNOWN TO THE READER :

V.—RAMON ALONZO LEARNS OF THE BOX
VI—TueEre 1s TALK OF GULVAREZ . k
VII.—Ramon Atonzo FOLLOWS THE ART.

VIII—Ramon ALONZO SHARES THE IDLE-
NESS OF THE MAIDENS OF ARAGONA

IX.—Tue TECHNIQUE OF ALCHEMY . s

X.—Tue EXPOSURE OF THE FALSE SHAD-

ow . . . . . .

NI ETHE CHILL OF oPACE í i k

iii

PAGE

16

74
SI

97.

iv CONTENTS

CHAPTER
XIT.—Mirannota DEMANDS A LOvE-Po-
TION

XITI.—Ramon ALONZO COMPOUNDS THE
PoTIon .

XIV.—TueE FOLK or ARAGONA STRIKE FOR
THE FAITH

XV.—Ramon Atonzo TALKS or TEcH-
NIQUE AND MUDDLES HIS FATHER

XVI.—THE Work oF FATHER JOSEPH .
XVII.—Tue Turee Farr FIELDS .
XVIII.—Tue Love-Porion

XIX.—FatuHer JOSEPH EXPLAINS HOW THE
Laity Have no NEED OF THE PEN

XX.—Tue MAGICIAN Imitates A Way oF
THE Gops

XXI.—Warrte Macic Comes to THE Woop

XXII—Ramon Atonzo Crosses A SWORD
Wits Maaic.

XXIII.—Tue PLAN or RAMON ALONZO .

XXIV.—Ramon Atonzo Dances WITH HIS
SHADOW .

XXV.—Tue RELEASE OF THE SHADOW .

XXVI.—Tue WONDERFUL CASTING .

PAGE

107

115

218
229

238

CONTENTS

XXVII.—Tuey Dread THAT A WITCH HAS
RIDDEN FROM THE COUNTRY BE-
YOND Moon’s RISING .

XXVIII—Gonsatvo SiIncs WHAT HAD BEEN
THE Latest AIR FROM PROVENCE

XXIX.—TuHeE CASKET OF SILVER AND OAK IS
GIVEN TO SENOR GULVAREZ .

XXX.—Tue END OF THE GOLDEN AGE.

245

259

267
283

THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

THE
CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

CHAPTER: I

THE LORD OF THE TOWER FINDS A CAREER FOR HIS
SON

ICTURE a summer evening sombre and sweet

over Spain, the glittering sheen of leaves fad-

ing to soberer colours, the sky in the west all soft,

and mysterious as low music, and in the east like a

frown. Picture the Golden Age past its wonderful
zenith, and westering now towards its setting.

In such a time of day and time of year, and in
such a time of history, a young man was travelling
on foot ona Spanish road, from a village wellnigh
unknown, towards the gloom and grandeur of moun-
tains. And as he travelled a wind rising up with the
fall of day flapped his cloak hugely about him.

The strength of the wind grew, until little strange
cries were in it; the slope steepened, the daylight
waned; and the man and his cloak and the evening
so merged into one darkness that even in imagina-
tion I can but dimly see him now.

3

4 THE. CHARWOMAN?S ‘SHADOW

Let us therefore turn to- such questions as who he
was, and how ‘he came to: be’ faring at such an hour
towards a region so rocky and lonely as that which
loomed before him, while the latest stragglers
amongst other men were nearing their houses
amongst the sheltered fields.

His name was Ramon Alonzo Matthew-Mark-
Luke-John of the Tower and Rocky Forest. And
his father had lately called to him as he played at
ball with his sister, beating it back and forth to
each other over a deep yew hedge; and the ball had
a row of feathers fixed all round it to make it fly
gently and fairly; and the yew hedge ended at a
white balustrade, and beyond that lay the wild rocks
and the frown of the forest: his father called to him
and he entered the house out of the mellow evening,
praying his sister to wait; but he talked with his
father till all the light was gone, and they played at
ball no more.

And in such a manner as this spoke the Lord of
the Tower and Rocky Forest to his son when they
were seated before the logs in the room where the
boar-spears hung. “Whether to hunt the boar or the
stag be sweeter I know not; methinks the boar, but
only the blessed Saints know which is truly the
sweeter: and yet there are other considerations be-
sides these, and the world were happier were it not
so, yet it is ever thus.” And the boy nodded his
head, for he knew what it was of which his father
would speak, that it was of lucre, which hath much to
do with worldly affairs : the good fathers had warned

A CAREER FOR HIS SON 5

him of it. And indeed of this very thing his father
told.

“For however vile or dross-like,” he said, “gold
be in itself, and I do not ask you to doubt the
ill repute you have learned of it in the school on the
high hill, yet is it necessary in curious ways to many
things that are good, as certain foulnesses nourish
the roots of the vine. For Emanuel and Mark are of
such a kind that they will have their regular payment
year in year out for such work as they do with the
horses, nor is Peter any better in the garden, and it
is indeed the same in the dairy. And then there was
the teaching that you received from the good fathers
on their high hill, much of this dross went also there
though the work itself was a blessed one. And now
it is necessary to put yet more of this gold in a box,
and to have it ready against some day when a dowry
will be needed for your sister, for she is already past
fifteen. And, the rocky structure of our soil being
unsuited to husbandry, gold is not easily wrung from
it, and there is little of a worldly nature to be won
from the forest; and to me it seems that as sin in-
creases on Earth the need for gold grows greater.

“For myself, if the getting of gold be an art, as
some have said, I am past the time for learning a
new art; and, if it be a sin, my sins are over. Yet
you my son may haply gather this great necessity for
us, or this,evil, whatever it be; and, if it be a sin,
what is one more sin to youth? Not much, I fear.”

The youth crossed himself.

“And follow not the way of the sword,” con-

6 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

tinued his father, in no whit diverted from his dis-
course, “for the lawyers ever defeat it with their
pens, as hath been said of old; but follow the Art,
and you shall deal in a matter at whose mention law-
yers pale.”

“The Black Art!’ exclaimed Ramon Alonzo.

“There is but one art,” said his father; “and it
shall all the more advantage you to follow it in
that there hath been of late but little magic in Spain,
and even in this forest there are not, but on rarest
evenings, such mysteries nor such menace as I my-
self can remember; and no dragon hath been seen
since my grandfather’s days.”

“The Black Art!” said Ramon Alonzo. “But how
shall I tell of this to Father Joseph?”

And his father rubbed his chin awhile before he
spoke again. :

“°Twere hard indeed,” he said, “to tell so good a
man. Yet are we in sore need of gold, and God
forbid in His mercy that one of us should ever follow
a trade.”

“Amen,” said his son.

And the fervour with which the boy had said
Amen heartened his father to hope he would do
his bidding, and cheered him on the way with his
discourse, which he continued as follows.

“There is dwelling in the mountains, a day’s walk
beyond Aragona (whose spires we see), a magician
known to my father. For once my father hunting a
stag in his youth went far into the mountains, as
goodly a stag as ever rejoiced a hunter, though once

A CAREER FOR HIS SON 7

I killed one as good but never better. I killed mine
in the year of the great snowfall, the year before you
were born; it had come down from the mountains.
But my father hunted his up from the valley where it
had been feeding all night at the edges of gardens;
it went home to the mountains, and in dense woods
on the slope my father killed it at evening. And then
_ the most curious man he had ever known came down
the rocks, walking gently, wearing a black silk cloak,
to where he was skinning the stag with his tired
hounds sitting round him, and asked my father if he
studied magic. And my father said that hunting
the stag and the boar were the only studies he knew.
And well indeed he studied them, and he taught
me, but not all he knew for no man could learn so
much. And then he told the magician something of
how to hunt boars; and the magician was pleased,
for men shunned him much, and seldom spoke from
their hearts of the things they loved, before his
portentous cloak and his strange wise eye. And my
father warmed to the tales as he told of the thing he
had studied; and the stars came twinkling out above
the magician, and the gloom was enormous in the
ominous wood, and still my father told of the ways
of boars, for there was never fear in my father.
And the magician asked my father if there was any
favour he would have of him, and my father said
“Yes, for he had ever wondered at the art of writing,
and he asked the magician if he would write for him.
And this the magician did, withdrawing a cork from
a horn that hung from his girdle and that was filled

8 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

with ink, and taking a goose-quill and writing there
in the wood upon a little scroll that he took from
a satchel. And they parted in the wood, and my
father remembered that day all his years, as much
for what he had seen the magician do as for the
splendid horns he had won that day. And when the
writing came to be read it was seen that it was a letter
of friendship or welcome to my father or to whom-
ever he should send with that scroll to the house
in the wood.

“Now my father cared only to hunt the boar
and the stag and had no need of magic, and I have
had nothing to do with parchments nor writings.
But I can find the scroll at this moment among
the tusks of boars that my father laid by, and you
shall have the scroll and go to the wood and say to
that magician, ‘I am the grandson of him that taught
you of the taking of boars nigh eighty years agone.’ ”

“But will he yet live?” asked Ramon.

“He were no magician else,” replied his father.

And the boy sat silent then, regretting the thought-
lessness that his hasty words had revealed.

“With the mystery of writing, which you will
doubtless study there, I have myself some acquaint-
ance, having sufficiently studied the matter, some
while since, to be able to practise it should the occa-
sion ever arise; but of all the mysteries that he hath
the skill to teach you the one to study most diligently
is that one which concerns the making of gold. Yes,
yes,” he said, silencing with a wave or two of his
hand some hasty youthful objection that he saw on

A CAREER FOR HIS SON 9

the boy’s lips, “I wot well the sin that is inherent
in gold, yet methinks there is some primal curse upon
it, put there by Satan before it was laid in earth,
which may not cling to the gold that philosophers
make.”

And youth and haste again urged another ques-
tion. “But can the philosophers make gold?” blurted
out Ramon Alonzo.

“Tll-informed lad,” said his father, “have you
heard of no philosophers during the last ten cen-
turies seeking for gold with their stone?”

“Yes,” answered Ramon Alonzo, “but I heard of
none that found it.” _

And his father shook his head with tolerant smiles
and answered nothing at once, not hastening to re-
prove the lad’s ill-founded opinion, for the wisdom
of age expects these light conclusions from youth.
And then he instructed his son in simple words, tell-
ing him that the value of gold lies not in any especial
power in the metal, but purely in its rarity; and ex-
plaining so that a child could have understood, that
had these most learned of men who gave their lives
to alchemy acquainted the vulgar with the fruits of
their study, as soon as their art had taught them the
way of transmuting base metal, they would have un-
done in one garrulous moment the advantage that
they had earned by nights of toil, working in lonely
towers while all the world had rest. And more simple
arguments he added, sufficient to correct the hasty
error of youth, but too obvious and trite to offer to
the attention of my reader. Having then explained

10 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

that the philosopher’s stone must have been often
found and put to the use for which it was intended,
he recommended the study of it once more to his son.
And the young man weighed the advantages of gold
with all that he had learned in its disfavour, and
there and then decided to follow that study. Gladly
then the Lord of the Tower and Rocky Forest went
to his rummage-room where strange things lay and
none interfered with the spider. And in that dim
place where one scarce could have hoped to find any-
thing, amongst heaps of old fishing nets that had be-
come solid with dust, where worn-out boar-spears
lay on the floor, and rusted bandilleros that had
once pricked famous bulls, blunt knives and broken
tent-pegs, and things too old for one to be able to
name them at all, unless one washed them and
brought them out in the light, groping amongst all
these the Lord of the Tower found a pale heap of
boars’ tusks, and the scroll amongst them, as he had
told his son : then he left the place to the spider. And
returning with the scroll to his son he brought also
a coffer out of another room, a small stout box of
oak and massive silver, well guarded by a great lock,
all lined within with satin. And he took a great
key and carefully unlocked it, and showed it to
Ramon Alonzo as he gave him the scroll of the
magician; he held the coffer open with the light
blue satin showing and said never a word; the
young man knew it for the coffer of his sister’s
dowry and saw that it was empty. And by the
time his father had closed the box again, and care-

A CAREER FOR HIS SON II

fully locked it and placed the key in safety, the boy’s
young thoughts had roamed away to beyond Ara-
gona to the man with the black silk cloak and his
house in the wood, where base metals would have to
suffer wonderful changes before good thick pieces
of dross should chink deep on that satin lining. And
where young thoughts have roamed there soon follow
lads or maidens.

And then they talked of the way beyond Aragona,
and the path that led to the wood. And the father
leaned in his chair in comfort at ease, for it wearied
him to speak of things that are hard to understand,
and especially the getting of money; and he had
thought of this matter for days before he had spoken
of it, and it had never seemed sure to him that the
money would come at all, but now all seemed clear
and he rested. And leaning back in his chair he told
the way to his son, which was easy as far as the
wood, and after that he could ask the way of such
men as he met; and if he met none he was likely near
to the house, for men avoided it much. Awhile they
talked of things of little moment, small matters pleas-
ant to both, till the father remembered that more
than this was seemly, and reminded his son of all
such things as he himself knew that concerned the
decorum and gravity of the study of magic. Indeed
he knew little of this ancient study, but had once seen
a conjuror produce a rabbit alive from under an
empty sombrero, years ago outside a village in which
he had sought to purchase a cow, and it was this that
he meant when he spoke of the slight acquaintance

12 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

he had himself had with magic; for the rest he spoke
of the hoar traditions of magic, which were as
antique then as now, for then as now they went back
past the first gates of history, and ran far on the
wide plains of legend and into the dimness of time.

“To such traditions,” he said, “a grave decorum
were fitting.”

And the young man nodded his head, his face
full of a fitting decorum. And the father remem-
bered his own youth and wondered.

They parted then, the Lord of the Tower and
Rocky Forest going to find his lady, the young
man still in his chair before the fire, pondering his
journey and his future calling. These thoughts were
too swift to follow: pursuing instead the slow steps
of his father we find him come to a room in which,
already, discernible shadows were cast by a want of
gold. With its ancient sentinel chairs that seemed
posted there to check lounging, and its treasure of
tapestries hung to hide ruined panels or wherever the
draughts blew most from untended rat-holes, that
threatened room would scarce convey to our minds,
could we see it across the centuries, any hint of im-
pending need. And yet those shadows were there,
moving softly as in slow dances with the solemn
folds of the tapestry, or rising to welcome draughts
in their secret manner, or lurking by the huge carved
feet of the chairs; and always knowing with shadow-
knowledge and whispering with shadow-talk, and
hinting and prophesying and fearing, that a need was
nearing the Tower to trouble its years. And here the

A CAREER FOR HIS SON 13

Lord of the Tower found his lady, whose hair was
whitening above a face unperturbed by the passing of
time or anything that time brings; if great passions
had shaken her mind or wandering imaginations
often troubled it, they had passed across that plump
and placid face with no more traces than the storms
and the ships leave on the yellow sand of a sunny
cove.

And he said to her: “I have spoken with Ramon
Alonzo and have arranged everything with him. He
is to leave us soon to work with a learned man that
lives beyond Aragona, and will win for us the gold
that we require and, afterwards, some more for
himself.”

More than this he did not say upon that matter,
for it was not his way, nor was it then the custom
in Spain to speak of business to ladies.

And the lady rejoiced at this, for she had long
tried to make her husband see that need that was
sending its shadows to creep through the Tower, tell-
ing every nook of its coming; but the boars had to
he hunted, and the hounds had to be fed, and a hun-
dred things demanded his attention, so that she
feared he might never have leisure to give his mind
to this matter. But now it was all settled.

“Will Ramon Alonzo start soon?” she said.

“Not for some days,” said he. “There is no
haste.”

But Ramon Alonzo’s swifter thoughts had out-
paced all this. He was speaking now with his sister,
telling her that he was to start next morning for that

14 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

old house in the mountains of which they had often
heard tales, and bidding her tend his great boar-
hound. They were in the garden though the gloam-
ing was fading away, the garden that met the lawn
on which they had lately played, a little lower down
the slope where the Tower stood, and shut from the
untamed earth and the rocks that were there before
man by the same balustrade of marble that guarded
the lawn. The hawk-moths appeared out of the dark-
ening air from their deep homes in the forest and
hovered by heavy blooms; it was in the midst of the
days that are poised between Spring and Summer.
Here Ramon and Mirandola said farewell in the little
paths along which they often had played in years that
appeared remote to them, under Spanish shrubs that
were like tall fountains of flowers. And whatever
the lady of the Tower guessed, neither her lord nor
Ramon Alonzo had any knowledge that there was a
glittering flash in the eyes of the slender girl that
might laugh away demands for any dowry, and be
deadlier and sweeter than gold, and might mock the
men that sought it and bring their plans to derision,
and overturn their illusion and fill their dreams with
its ashes. Ramon Alonzo was troubled by no such
fancy as this as he spoke earnestly of his boar-hound,
and as they spoke of his needs of combing and feed-
ing and dryness they walked back to the Tower ; and
the gloaming was not yet gone, but it was mid-
night in Mirandola’s hair.

And so it was that on the following day, at eve-
ning, beyond Aragona, a young man was to be seen

A CAREER FOR HIS SON 15

by such eyes as could peer so far, in his cloak on a
rocky road with his back to the sheltered fields,
bound for the mountain upon which frowned the
woods; and night and a moaning wind were rising
all round about him.

CHAPTER II
RAMON ALONZO COMES TO THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD

AMON ALONZO had travelled all day, and
R was twenty-five miles from his home; and now
alone amongst darkness and storm and rocks he saw
yet no sign of the house he sought, or any shelter at
all. He had come past the sentinel oaks to the gloom
of the wood, and neither saw light of window any-
where nor heard any of those sounds such as rise
from the houses of men. He was in that mood that
most attracts despair to come to men and tempt
them; and indeed it would soon have come, luring
him to forsake illusion and give up ambition and
hope, but that just in that perilous moment he met
a ragged man coming down through the wood. He
came with strides, cloak and rags all flapping to-
gether, and would have passed the young traveller
and hastened on towards the fields and the haunts of
men, but Ramon Alonzo hailed him, demanding of
him : “Where is the house in the wood?”

“Oh not there, young master, not there,” said the
ragged stranger, waving his hands against something
upon his left and up the slope a little behind him.
“Not there, young master,” he implored again, and

16

THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD 17

shuddered as he spoke. And no despair came near
Ramon Alonzo then, to tempt all his aspirations
down to their dooms, for he saw by the stranger’s
unmistakable terror he had only to keep on upward
and a little more to his right to come very soon in
sight of the house in the wood.

“I have business with the magician,” replied
Ramon Alonzo.

“May all such blessed Saints defend us as can,”
said the stranger. He wrapped his cloak round him
with a trembling hand and went shuddering down the
slope drivelling terrified prayer.

“A fair night to you, sefior,’
Alonzo. l

“Clearly not far,” he added, thinking aloud.

And once more he heard struggling feebly against
the eerie voice of the wind those plaintive words im-
pioring : “Not there, young master, not there.” And
pressing on in the direction against which those
feebie hands had waved so earnestly, he had gone
some while against wind and slope and branches when
a feeling came dankly upon him, as though exuded
from the deep moss all around him, that he came no
nearer to the house in the wood. He halted then
and called out loud in the darkness: “If there be a
magician in this wood let him appear.”

He waited and the wind sang on triumphantly,
singing of spaces unconcerned with man, blue fields
of the wind’s roving, dark gardens amongst the stars.
He waited there and no magician came. So he sat
on a boulder that was all deep with moss, and leaned

>

called out Ramon

18 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

back on it and looked into the wood, and saw nothing
there but blackness and outlines of oak-boles. There
he pondered how to come to his journey’s end. And
then it came to him that this was no common jour-
ney, to be guided by the rules of ordinary wayfaring,
but, having a magician as its destination and in
an ominous wood, it were better guided by spell
or magic or omen; and he meditated upon how
he should come by a spell. And as he thought of
spells he remembered the scroll he bore, with the
ink of the magician upon it written eighty years
agone. Now Ramon Alonzo’s studies had not ex-
tended so far as the art of writing; the good fathers
in their school on the high hill near his home had
taught him orally all that is needful to know, and
much more he had learned for himself, but not by
reading. Script therefore in black ink upon a scroll
was in itself wonderful to him and, knowing it to
have been penned by a magician, he reasonably re-
garded it as a spell. Arising then from his seat he
waved this scroll high in the night and, knowing the
liking that secret folk oft show for the number three,
he waved it thrice. And there before him was the
house in the wood.

It seemed to have slid down quietly from the high
places of night, or it quietly appeared out of dark-
ness that had hidden it hitherto, but the silence that
cloaked its appearance almost instantly glided away,
giving place to Arabian music that haunted the air
overhead and plaintive Hindu lové-chants that
yearned in the dark. Then windows flashed into

THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD 19

light, and there just in front of the mossy stone that
the young man had made his seat was an old green
door all studded with old green knobs. The door
was ajar.

Ramon Alonzo stepped forward and pushed the
green door open, and the magician came to his door
with that alacrity with which the spider descends to
the spot in his web that is shaken by some lost winged
traveller’s arrival. He was in the great black silk
cloak that the young man’s grandfather knew, but he
wore great spectacles now, for he was older than he
had been eighty years ago, in spite of his magic art.
Ramon Alonzo bowed and the master smiled, though
whether he smiled for. welcome, or at a doom that
hung over the strangers who troubled his door, there
was no way for unlearned men to know. Then
quickly, though still without fear, Ramon Alonzo
thrust out the scroll that he bore, with the magician’s
own writing upon it all in black ink; saying, word for
word as his father had bade him say, “I am the
grandson of him that taught you the taking of boars
nigh eighty years ago.” The magician received it,
and as he read his smile changed its nature and ap-
peared to Ramon Alonzo somewhat more wholesome,
having something in common with smiles of un-
learned men that they smile at what is pleasant in
earthly affairs. With a tact that well became him
the master of magic made no enquiry after the young
man’s grandfather; for as the rich do not speak of
poverty to the poor, or the learned discourse on
ignorance to the unlearned, this sage that had

20 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

mastered the way of surviving the years spoke sel-
dom with common men on the matter of death. But
he bowed a welcome as though Ramon Alonzo were
not entirely a stranger ; and the young man expressed
the pleasure that he felt at meeting a master of arts.

“There is but one Art,” answered the Master.

“It is the one I would study,” replied Ramon
Alonzo,

“Ah,” said the magician.

And with an air now grown grave, as though
somewhat pondering, he raised his arm and sum-
moned up a draught, which closed his green door.
When the door was shut and the draught had run
home, brushing by the loose silk sleeve of the ma-
gician to its haunt in the dark of the house, which
Ramon Alonzo perceived to be full of crannies, the
host led his guest to an adjacent room, whence the
savour of meats arose as he opened the door. And
there was a repast all ready cooked and spread,
waiting for Ramon Alonzo. By what arts those
meats were kept smoking upon that table ready for
any stranger that should come in from the wood,
ready perhaps since the days of the young man’s
grandfather, I tell not to this age, for it is far too
well acquainted already with the preservation of
meat.

With a bow and a wave of his arm the magician
appointed a chair to Ramon Alonzo. And not till
his guest was seated before the meats did the ma-
gician speak again.

“So you would study the Art,” he said.

THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD ‘21

“Master,” the young man answered him, “I
would.”

“Know then,” the magician said, “that all those
exercises that men call arts, and all wisdom and all
knowledge, are but humble branches of that worthy
study that is justly named the Art. Nor is this to
be revealed to all chance-come travellers that may
imperil themselves by entering my house in the
wood. My gratitude to your grandfather however,
for some while now unpaid (I trust he prospers),
renders me anxious to serve you. For he taught
me a branch of learning that he had studied well: it
was moreover one of those studies that my re-
searches had not yet covered, the matter of the
hunting of boars; and from this, as from every
science that learning knows, the Art hath increase,
and becometh a yet more awful and reverend power
whereby to astound the vulgar, and to punish error,
not only in this wood but finally to drive it out of
all worldly affairs.”

And he spoke swiftly past his mention of Ramon
Alonzo’s grandfather, lest his guest should have
the embarrassment of admitting that his grandfather
had shared with all the unlearned the vulgar in-
ability to withstand the flight of the years. For
himself he kept on a shelf in an upper room a bottle
of that medicine philosophers use, which is named
elixir vitæ, wherein were sufficient doses to ensure
his survival till the time when he knew that the world
would begin to grow bad. He took one dose in
every generation. By certain turns in the tide of

22 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

life in those that he watched, a touch of grey over
the ears, a broadening or a calming, he knew that
the heyday of a generation was past and the time
had come for his dose. And then he would go one
night by resounding stairs, that were never troubled
by anything human but him, whatever the rats might
dare, and so he would come with his ponderous
golden key, for an iron one would have long since
rusted away, to the lock he turned only once every
thirty years. And, opening the heavy door at the
top of the stairs and entering that upper room, he
would find his bottle grey with dust on its shelf,
perhaps entirely hidden by little curtains that the
spiders had drawn across it, and measuring his
dose by moonlight he would drink it full in the rays,
as though he shared this secret alone with the moon.
Then back he would go down those age-worn steps
of oak with his old mind suddenly lightened of the
cares of that generation, free from its foibles, un-
troubled by its problems, neither cramped nor duped
by its fashions, unyoked by its causes, undriven by.
its aims, fresh and keen for the wisdom and folly of
a new generation. Such a mind, well stored with
the wisdom of several ages and repeatedly refreshed
with the nimble alertness of youth, now crossed in
brief conversation the young mind of Ramon
Alonzo, like a terrible blade of Toledo, sharpened in
ancient battles, meeting a well-wrought rapier com-
ing fresh to its first war.

“My grandfather unfortunately came to his
death,” said Ramon Alonzo,

THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD) 23

“Alas,” said the Master.

“Our family is well used to it,” said the youth
with a certain pride, for poverty has its pride as
‘well as wealth, and Ramon Alonzo would not be
abashed by his forebears’ lack of years even though
he should speak with an immortal.

“Ts that so?” said the Master.

“I thank you,” said Ramon Alonzo, “for the
noble sentiments you so graciously felt for my grand-
father and shall greatly value such learning as you
may have leisure to teach me, for I would make gold
out of the baser metals, my family having great
need of it.”

“There are secrets you shall not learn,” replied the
magician, “for I may impart them to none; but
the making of gold is amongst the least of the
crafts that are used by those skilled in the Art, and
were only a poor return for the learning I had from
your grandfather concerning the hunting of boars.”

“Beyond this wood,” said Ramon Alonzo, “we
set much store by gold, and value it beyond the
hunting of boars.”

“Beyond this wood,” replied the Master, “lies
error, to extirpate which is the object of my studies.
For this my lamp is lit, to the grief of the owls,
and often burns till lark-song. Of the things you
shall learn here earliest the prime is this, that the
pursuit of the philosophers is welfare. To this gold
often contributes; often it thwarts it. But it was
plainly taught by your grandfather that the hunting
of boars is amongst those things that bring pure

24 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

joy to man. This study must therefore always be
preferred to such as only bring us happiness incom-
pletely, or that have been known to fail to bring
it at all, as the hunting of boars never failed, so I
learned from your grandfather.”

“I fear that my grandfather,’ said the young
man deprecatingly, “was but ill-equipped for dis-
course with a philosopher, having had insufficient
leisure, as I have often been told, for learning.”

“Your grandfather,” answered the Master, “was
a very great philosopher. Not only had he found
the way to happiness but of that way was a most
constant explorer, till none may doubt that he knew
its every turning; for he could track the boars to
the forest all the way from the fields where they
rooted, knowing what fields they would seek and
the hour at which they would leave them, and could
hearten his hounds while they hunted, even through
watery places, and when scent was lost and all their
cunning was gone he still could lead them on; and
so he brought them upon many a boar, and slew
his quarry with spear-thrusts that he had practised,
and took its tusky head, which was his happiness;
and rarely failed to achieve it, having so deeply
studied the way.

“I also have followed the pursuit of happiness,
studying all those methods that are most in use
amongst men, as well as some that are hidden from
them; and most of these methods are vain, leaving
few that are worthy of the investigation of one
holding the rank that I now hold amongst wizards.

THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD) 25

Of these few that have stood the test of my most
laborious analysis is this one that I owe to the re-
searches of your grandfather, and which, seeing how
few are the ways of attaining happiness, is certainly
among the four great branches of learning. Who
knows these four great studies hath four different
ways of approach to the goal of mankind, and hath
that might that is to be got by complete wisdom
alone. For this cause I give great honour to your
grandfather, and extol his name, and bless it by
means of spells, and in my estimation place it high
amongst the names of those whose learning has
lightened the world. Alas that his studies gave him
no time for that last erudition which could have en-
sured his survival to these days and beyond them.”

The young man was surprised at the value the
Master placed upon boar-hunting for, having as yet
learned nothing about philosophy, he vaguely and
foolishly believed it to be concerned with mere in-
tricate words, and did not know in his youthful ig-
norance that its real concern was with happiness.
Such folly is scarce becoming to young heroes, yet
having sought to lure my reader’s interest towards
him I feel it my duty to tell the least of his weak-
nesses, without which my portrait of him would be
a false one. And so I expose his ignorance to the
eyes of a later age; he will not be abashed by it now;
but seated beside the meat at that magic table he felt
the triviality of his schoolboy’s scraps of learning
before every particle that the magician chose to re-
veal from his lore. And with all the intensity that

26 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

trifles can summon up in youth he regretted his
disparagement of his grandfather, not on account of
his own reverence for him, but because he now per-
ceived him to have been one that the Master held in
honour. To cover his confusion he poured himself
out some wine from a beaker at his right hand,
partly bronze, partly glass, the bronze and glass be-
ing intermingled by magic; and, having filled his
cup, a clear hollowed crystal, he hastily drank it be-
fore he spoke again.

And the wine was a magic wine with a taste of
flowers, yet of flowers unknown to Earth, and a
flavour of Spices, yet of spices ungathered in any
isles Spain knew; and it had in it a memory and a
music, and came to the blood like one that was closely
kin, and yet of a kinship from ages and ages ago.
And all of a sudden the young man saw his folly, in
deeming that philosophy prefers the way to the end,
and so for a moment he saw his grandfather’s wis-
dom; but that wonderful wine’s inspiration died
swiftly away, and his thoughts were concerned again
with the making of gold.

The magician had silently watched him drink of
that magic vintage.

“It comes not from these vineyards,” he said.
And he waved his arm so wide that he seemed to
indicate no vineyard of Spain, nor the neighbouring
kingdom of Portugal; nor France, nor Africa, nor
the German lands; Italy, Greece, nor the islands.

“Whence?” asked Ramon Alonzo, leaning for-
ward in earnest wonder.

THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD 27

And the Master extended his arm, pointing it
higher. It seemed to point towards the Evening
Star, that low and blue and large was blinking be-
yond the window.

“It is magic,’ said Ramon Alonzo.

“All’s magic here,” said the Master.

CHAPTER IIT
THE CHARWOMAN TELLS OF HER LOSS

S Ramon Alonzo supped that tall figure of
A magic stood opposite without moving, and
spoke no more; so that the young man ate hastily
and soon had finished. He rose from the table,
the other signed with his arm, and passed out of the
room, Ramon Alonzo following. Soon they came
to a lanthorn which the Master of the Art took
down from its hook on the wall; he turned then away
from his green door and led his visitor on to the
deeps of his house. And it seemed to Ramon
Alonzo, with the curious insight of youth, as he
followed the black bulk of the Master of the Art
looming above the wild shadows that ran from the
lanthorn, that here was the master of a band of
shadows leading them home into their native dark-
ness. And so they came to an ancient stairway of
stone, that was lit by narrow windows opening on
the stars, though to-night the Master brought his
lanthorn to light it in honour of his guest. And
it was plain even to Ramon Alonzo from the com-
motion of the bats, though he had not the art to
read the surprise in the eyes of the spiders, that
the light of a lanthorn seldom came that way, They

28

THE CHARWOMAN’S LOSS 29

came to a door that no spell had guarded from time ;
the magician pushed it open and stood, aside, and
Ramon Alonzo entered. At first he only saw the
huge bulk of the bed, but as the lanthorn was
lifted into the room he saw the ruinous panels along
the wall; and then the light fell on the bed-clothes,
and he could see that blankets and sheets mouldered
all in one heap together and a cobweb covered them
over. Some rush mats lay on the floor, but some-
thing seemed to have eaten most of the rushes.
Over the window a draught flapped remnants of
curtains, but the moth must have been in those
curtains for ages and ages. The Master spoke with
an air of explanation, almost perhaps of apology:
“Old age comes to all,” he said. Then he withdrew.

Left alone with the starlight, to which the work
of the moth allowed an ample access, Ramon Alonzo
considered his host. The room was ominous and
the house enchanted and there might well be spells
in it more powerful than his sword, yet if his host
were friendly it seemed to him he was safe amongst
his enchantments, unless some rebel spirit should
trouble the night, who had revolted from the spells
of the magician. He generously accepted the Mas-
ter’s explanation of the state of the room, shrewdly
considering him to be a man so absorbed in the
perpetuity of his art that he gave no attention to
material things; so trusting to his host's expressions
of goodwill, and of gratitude to his grandfather,
he lay down on the bed to sleep, untroubled by fear
of spells or spirits of evil, but he took off none of

30 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

his clothes, for against the risk of damp he felt there
was none to guard him.

Either he slept or was in that borderland where
Earth is dimmed by a haze from the land of sleep,
and dreams cast shadows yet on the shores of Earth
before they glide afar, when he heard slow steps
come up the stairway of stone. And presently there
was a knock, to which he answered, and a crone
appeared in the door, holding the lanthorn that the
magician had lately carried. Age had withered her
beyond pity; for whatever pity there be for sickness
and hurts, youth feels little pity for age, having never
known it, and the aged have little pity to give to their
fellows, because pity is withering in them with many
another emotion, like the last of the flowers droop-
ing all together as winter nears the garden. She
stood there feeble and wasted, an ancient hag.

And before the young man spoke she quavered
to him, with an earnest intentness the fervour of
which not even her age could dim, stretching out
a withered right hand to him as she spoke, the left
hand holding the lanthorn: “Young master, give
him nothing! Give him nothing, whatever he ask!
His prices are too high, young master, too high,
too high!”

“I have little money to give,” said Ramon
Alonzo.

“Money!” she gasped, for her vehemence set her
panting. “Money! That is naught! That’s a toy !
That’s a mousetrap! Money indeed! But his prices
are too high: he asks more than money.”

THE CHARWOMAN’S LOSS 31

“More than money?” said Ramon Alonzo.
“What then?”

“Look!” she cried lamentably, and twirled the
Janthorn about her.

The young man saw first her face, and a look on
it like the look on the face of one revealing a mortal
wound; and then, as she swung the lanthorn round,
he suddenly saw that the woman had no shadow.

“What! No shadow?” he blurted out, sitting sud-
denly up on his heap of cobwebs and sheets.

“Never again,” she said, “never again. It lay
over the fields once; it used to make the grass such
a tender green. It never dimmed the buttercups. It
did no harm to anything. Butterflies may have been
scared of it, and once a dragon-fly, but it did them
never a harm. I’ve known it protect anemones
awhile from the heat of the noonday sun, which had
otherwise withered them sooner. In the early morn-
ing it would stretch away beyond our garden right
out to the wild; poor innocent shadow that loved
the grey dew. And in the evening it would grow
bold and strong and run right down the slopes of
hills, where I walked singing, and would come to
the edges of bosky tangled places, till a little more
and its head would have been out of sight: [ve
known the fairies then dance out from their sheltered
arbours in the deeps of briar and thorn and play with
its curls. And, for all ‘its rovings and lurkings and
love of mystery, it never left me, of its own ac-
cord never. It was I that forsook it, poor shadow,
poor shadow that followed me home. For I’ve been

32 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

out with it when the evenings were eerie and all the
valleys haunted, and my shadow must have met with
such companions as were far more kin to it than
my gross body could be, and nearer to it than my
heels, folk that would give it news direct from the
kingdom of shadows and gossip of the dark side of
the moon, and would whisper things that I could
never have taught it; yet it always came home with
me. And at night by candlelight in our cottage in
Aragona it used to dance for me as I went to bed,
all over the walls and ceilings, poor innocent shadow.
And if I left a low candle to burn away he never
tired of dancing for me as long as I sat up and
watched : often he outtired the candle, for the more
wearily the candle flickered the more nimbly he
leaped. And then he would lie and rest in any cor-
ner with the common shadows of humble trivial
things, but if I struck a light to rise before dawn, or
even if I should light my candle at midnight, he was
always there at once, erect on the wall, ready to fol-
low me wherever I went, and to bear me that com-
panionship as I went among men and women, which
I valued, alas, so little when I had it, and without
which now I know, too late I have learned, there
is no welcome for one, no pity, no sufferance
amongst mankind.”

“No pity?” said Ramon Alonzo, moved deeply
to pity, himself, by the old crone’s sorrow, though
unable to credit that her loss could matter so much
as she said.

“N o pity! No sufferance!” she said. “The chil-

THE CHARWOMAN’S LOSS 33

dren run from me screaming. Those that are large
enough to throw, throw stones at me; and their
elders come out with sticks when they hear them
scream. At evening they all grow angrier. They
come out with their long big faithful shadows, if
I dare go near a village, and stand just beyond the
strip where my shadow should be, and jeer at me
and upbraid and there is no pity. And all the while
they jeer there’s not one that loves his shadow as I
love mine. They do not gaze at their shadows, or
even turn to look at them. Ah, how I should gaze
at mine if it could come back, poor shadow. I
should go to a quiet place alone in the open country,
and there I should sit on the moss with my back
to the sun, and watch my shadow all day. I should
not want to eat or drink or think; I should only
watch my shadow. I should mark its gentle move-
ment that it makes in time with the sun, I should
watch till I saw it grow. And then I would hold
up my hand and move every finger, and each joint
of my arm; and see the shadow answering, answer-
ing, answering. And I should nod to it and bow to
it and curtsey. And I would dance to my shadow
alone. And all this I would do again and again all
day. I would watch the colour that every flower
took, and each different kind of grass, when my
shadow touched them. And this is not telling you
one hundredth part of it. It is this to love one’s
shadow!

“And what do they know of their shadows?
What do they care whether their shadows lie on

34 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

green grass or rock? What do they know what
colours the flowers turn when their shadows go
amongst them? And they won’t let me live with
them, speak with them, or pass them by, because
forsooth I have been unkind to my shadow. Ah,
well, perhaps the days will come when they too will
love something too late, and love something that is
gone, as I love my shadow; cold days and long days
those.”

“How did you lose it?” asked Ramon Alonzo, all
wonder and pity.

“He took it,” she said. “He took it. He took
it away and put it in his box. What did I know of
the need one has of a shadow: that they would not -
speak to me, would not let me live? They never told
me they set such store by their shadows. Nor do
they! Nor do they!”

The young man’s generous feelings were moved
by this wrong as though it had been his own.

“T will go there with my sword,” he exclaimed,
“and they shall speak with you courteously.”

For the first time that night the old woman
smiled. She knew that jealousy united with fear
could not be made to forgive such a loss as hers.
She had not known at first that it was jealousy, but
had learned it at length by her lonely ponderings.
The villagers saw that in some curious way she
had stepped outside boundaries that narrowed them,
and had escaped from one rule from which they had
never a holiday. They could never be rid of the
hourly attendance of shadows, but one that could

THE CHARWOMAN’S LOSS 35

should not triumph over them. She knew, and she
smiled.

“Young master,” she said, more than ever moved
to help him by his outburst of generosity, “give him
nothing.”

“But you,” he said, “did you give it to him?”

“Fool! Fool that I was!’ she said. “I did not
know I needed it.”

“But for what did you give it?” he asked.

“For immortality of a sort,’ she said, and said
so ruefully, with a look that told so much more,
that the young man saw clearly enough it had been
the gift of Tithonus.

“He gave you that !” he exclaimed.

“That,” she said.

“But why?” asked Ramon Alonzo.

“He wanted a charwoman,”’ she said.

CHARTER IV

RAMON ALONZO LEARNS A MYSTERY KNOWN TO THE
READER

HEN the crone had revealed the mean and
trivial purpose for which the Master of the

Art had cast her helpless upon the ages, she voiced
her regrets no more; but, once more warning the
young man against the magician’s prices, she turned
about with her lanthorn and went shadowless out of
the room. Ramon Alonzo had heard and disre-
garded tales of men that had paid their shadows as
the price for certain dealings within the scope of
the Art; but he had never before considered the
value of shadows. He saw now that to lose his
shadow and to come to yearn for it when it were
lost, and to lose the little greetings that one daily
had from one’s kind, and to hear no more tattle
about trivial things; to see smiles no more, nor to
hear one’s name called friendly; but to have the
companionship only of shadowless things, such as
that old woman, and wandering spirits, and dreams,
might well be to pay too Be for the making of
gold. And, well warned now, he decided that come
what may he would never part with his shadow. In

36

A MYSTERY 37,

his gratitude he determined to ask the magician for
some respite for that poor old woman from scrub-
bing his floors through the ages.

And then his thoughts went back to his main pur-
pose, to what metals were suited best for transmuta-
tion, and whether he could turn them into gold him-
self if the magician’s price were too high: other men
had done it; why not he? And, led towards ab-
surdity by this delightful hope, his thoughts grew
wilder and wilder till they were dreams.

The sun coming through the upper branches of
trees fell on that spidery bed and woke Ramon
Alonzo. He perceived then a great gathering of
huge oaks, seemingly more ancient than the rest of
the forest, and the house was in the midst of them.
It was a secret spot. He saw, now, that there was
in his room a second window, but the little twigs
had so pressed their leaves against it that no light
entered there but a dim greenness; it was like hun-
dreds of out-turned hands protesting against that
house.

By such light as came through the southeastern
window he tidied himself, brushing off with his
hands such cobwebs as he could. He did not draw
back the curtains, deeming that if he took hold of
a portion of one it would come away from the rest;
nor did enough material remain to obstruct much
of the light that came in through the trees. Then,
being dressed already, he opened his door and de-
scended the stairs of stone. Every narrow slit that
lighted those dim stairs continued to show vast

38 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

gathering of oaks that pressed close on the house,
so close that Ramon Alonzo saw now, what he had
faintly heard overnight and not understood, that
here and there great branches had entered the tower
and been shaped as steps amongst the steps of stone,
making two or three hollower sounds amongst the
tapping footsteps of such as used that stair. Upon
stormy nights the wooden steps swayed slightly.

When Ramon Alonzo had descended those steps
he came to passages amongst a darkness of rafters
which were like such nooks as children find under
old stairs, only larger and stranger and dimmer,
running this way and that; and, guided by glim-
mers of light that shone faintly from a far window,
he came at length to the hall, at whose other end
was the old green door to the forest. And there in
his black silk cloak in the midst of the hall the
magician awaited him.

He was standing motionless, and as soon as the
young man saw him the Master of the Art said: “I
trust you slept in comfort.” For his studies allowed
him leisure for courtesies such as these, but were too
profound to permit of such intercourse with com-
mon material things as lifting the cobwebs to see the
state of the bedclothes that had mouldered so long
upon his visitor’s bed. As for the charwoman, she
had sorrows enough watching the ages beating upon
her frame to trouble what a mere thirty or forty
years might do to the sheets and blankets,

“I slept admirably, señor,” Ramon Alonzo said,
with a grace in his bow that is sometimes only learnt

A MYSTERY 39

just as the joints and the muscles have grown too
stiff to achieve it.

“I rejoice,” said the magician.

“Master,” said Ramon Alonzo, “would you deign
to show me some unconsidered fragment of your
wisdom, some saw having naught to do with the
deeper mysteries, some trifle, some trick of learning,
perhaps the mere making of gold out of other dross,
that I may learn to study now, and so in time be
wise.”

“For this,” said the magician, pointing the way
with a gesture, “let us go to the room that is sacred
to the Art. Its very dust is made of books I have
studied, and is indeed more redolent of lore than any
dust in this wood; and if echoes die not at all, as
some have taught (though others urge finality for
all things), the spiders in its corners, whose ears
are attuned to sounds that are lost to ours, hear
still the echoes of my earlier musings whereby I un-
ravelled mysteries that are not for the ears of man.
There we will speak upon the graver matters.”

He led, and the young man followed. And again
he was amongst beams of age-darkened oak, and
twisty corridors leading into the gloom, which the
shape of the magician before him rendered un-
naturally blacker. They came to a black door
studded with wooden knobs, upon which the ma-
gician rapped, and the door opened. They entered,
and Ramon Alonzo perceived at once that it was a
magician’s work-room, not only by the ordinary ap-
pliances or instruments of magic, but by the several

40 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

sheets of gloom that seemed to come down from the
roof through the midst of the air, across the natural
dimness of the room. The appliances of magic were
there in abundance; stuffed crocodiles lying as thick
as on lonely mud-banks in Africa, dried herbs re-
sembling plants that blossom in wonted fields, yet
wearing a look that never was on any flowers of
ours, great twinkling jewels out of the heads of
toads, huge folios written by masters that had fol-
lowed the Art in China, small parchments with
spells upon them in Persian, Indian, or Arabic, the
horn of a unicorn that had slain its master; rare
spices, condiments, and the philosopher’s stone.

These Ramon Alonzo saw first as he came through
the doorway, though what their purposes were he
scarcely wondered, and these were the things that
always came to his memory whenever in after years
he recalled that sinister room. As his eyes became
accustomed to the dimness, more and more of the
wares and tools of the magical art came looming
out of the dusk, while the magician strode to a
high-backed chair at a lectern, on which a great
book lay open showing columns of Chinese manu-
script. In the high-backed chair the magician seated
himself before the Cathayan book, and taking up a
pen from an unknown wing, he looked at Ramon
Alonzo,

“Now,” he said, as though he came newly to the
subject or brought to it new acumen from having
sat in that chair, “what branch of the Art do you
desire to follow?”

A MYSTERY 4I

“The making of gold,” responded Ramon Alonzo.

“The formule of all material things have been
worked out,” said the magician, “and they have
all been found to be vanity. Amongst the first
whose formule failed before these investigations,
revealing mere vanity, was gold. Yet should you
wish to study the Art from its rudiments, from the
crude transmutation of mere material things to the
serious and weighty matter of transmigration, I am
willing to give you certain instruction at first upon
the frivolous topic of your choice. And it is not
entirely without value, for by observing the changes
in material things we chance sometimes on indica-
tions that guide us in graver studies. But the whole
of the way is long, even as the masters count time.
Would you therefore begin from these earliest rudi-
ments ?”

“T would,” said Ramon Alonzo.

“Know then,” said he, “that my fees are never
material things, but are dreams, hopes, and illusions,
and whatever other great forces control the fortune
of nations. Later I will enumerate them. But while
we study the mere transmutation of metals I will
ask no more than that which of all immaterial things
most nearly pertains to matter, at one point actually
touching it...”

“My shadow,” cried Ramon Alonzo.

The magician was irked by his guest’s discovery
of his fee, though he was indeed about to tell him,
but he had a few more words to say first about the
worthlessness of shadows, and the sudden disclosure

42 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

of the point was not in accordance with his plans for
conducting a bargain; and, as many a man will do
in such a case, he denied that he was about to ask
precisely that. He soon however came round to it
again, saying: “And even so it were little enough
to ask for my fee, which might well be larger were
it not for my gratitude to your grandfather; for a
shadow, of necessity, shares the doom that overtakes
matter, and is commoner far than faith if all were
known, and is of the least account of all immaterial
things.”

“Yet I need it,” said Ramon Alonzo.

“For what purpose?” asked the Master of the
Art.

“I shall need it when I go among the villages,”
he answered, “or wherever I meet with men.”

“Learn,” said the magician, “that aught that has
value is to be treasured on that account, and not
for the opinion of the vulgar; and that which has no
value is foolishly desired if its purpose be but to
minister to the fickleness of the idle popular
eve:

“Is my shadow valueless?” asked Ramon Alonzo.

“Utterly,” said the Master.

“Why then does your Excellency demand it?”

“Address me rather as Your Mystery,” said the
magician to gain time.

Ramon Alonzo apologized with due courtesy and
conformed to the correct usage.

“I need it,” said His Mystery, “because there are
those that serve me better when equipped with a

A MYSTERY 43

shadow than when drifting vapidly in their native
void. They have no other connection with Earth
except these shadows I give them, and for this pur-
pose I have many shadows which I keep here in a
box. But you who were born on Earth have no need
at all of a shadow, and lose none of our mundane
privileges if you should give it away.”

And for all the wisdom of the magician the young
man remained less moved by his well-reasoned argu-
ments than by the grief and garrulity of the char-
woman.

So he held to his shadow and would not part with
it; and the more the magician proved its uselessness
the more stubborn he became. And when the ma-
gician would not abate his fee the young man
determined to stay and study there rather than to
return home empty-handed; and to bide his time,
perhaps to come one day on the secret of trans-
mutation, perhaps to grow so learned through his
studies that he might work out its formula for him-
self. Therefore he said: “Are there no other mys-
teries that I may learn for a different fee?”

The Master answered: ““There are many mys-
tenies

“For what fees?” asked Ramon Alonzo.

“These vary,” said the magician, “according to
the mystery. Your faith, your hope, half your
eyesight, some illusion of value: I have many fees,
as indeed there are many illusions.”

He would not give his faith, nor yet his hope, for
that would be nearly as bad; and he had ever clung

44 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

somewhat tenaciously to his illusions, as indeed we
all do.

“What mystery,” he asked, “do you impart for
half my eyesight?”

“The mystery of reading,” answered the Master.

Now Ramon Alonzo had such eyesight that he
could count the points on a stag’s head at five hun-
dred paces, and deemed half would well suffice him.
Th magician moreover explained that it was not his
custom to take that fee in advance, but that the
length of his sight would diminish appreciably, as
he mastered the intricacies of the mystery.

This well suited Ramon Alonzo, for he had ever
wondered how the thoughts of men could lie sleep-
ing for ages in folios, and suddenly brighten new
minds with the mirth of men centuries dead; for
the good fathers had not taught him this in their
school, perhaps fearing that they would make their
wisdom too common if they recklessly made the
laity free of its source. And, believing as many do
that wisdom is only a matter of reading, he thought
soon to be on the track of the lore of those philoso-
phers who in former ages transmuted base metals
to gold, and so come by what he sought without los-
ing his shadow.

“Master,” said Ramon Alonzo, “I pray you teach
me that mystery.”

The magician shut the book. “To read Chinese,”
he said, “I do not teach for this fee, for the Chinese
script hides secrets too grave to be learnt at so
light a cost. For this fee I teach only to read in

d

A MYSTERY 45

the Spanish language. Hereafter, for other fees

“Master,” the young man said, “I am well con-
tenth

And then, with sonorous voice and magnificent
gestures, the magician began to expose the secrets
of reading; one by one he stripped mysteries, lay-
ing them bare to his pupil; and all the while he
taught in that grand manner, that he had from
the elder masters whose lore had been handed down.
He taught the use of consonants, the reason of
vowels, the way of the down-strokes and the up;
the time for capital letters, commas, and colons;
and why the “j” is dotted, with many another mys-
tery. That first lesson in the gloomy room were well
worthy of faithful description, so that every detail
of the mystery might be minutely handed down;
but the thought comes to me that my reader is nec-
essarily versed in this mystery, and for that reason
alone I say no more on this magnificent theme. Suf-
fice it that with all pomp and dignity due to this ap-
proach to the prime source of learning the magician
began to unfold the mystery of reading to the awed
and wondering eyes of Ramon Alonzo, And while
they taught and learned they heard outside in the
passage the doleful sweeping of the shadowless
woman that minded that awful house.

CHAPTER V
RAMON ALONZO LEARNS OF THE BOX

EFORE that day had passed Ramon Alonzo had
learned the alphabet. He did not master it in
one lesson; yet when the magician ceased all in the |
midst of his wonders, in order that Ramon Alonzo
should have the mid-day meal, he felt that the path-
way was already open that led to the boundless lands
made gay by the thoughts of the dead. And in those
lands what spells might he not unravel; and amongst
them the formula for the making of gold. If the
magician ate he ate secretly. But Ramon Alonzo,
going by his bidding to the room in which he had
eaten and drunk overnight, found hot meats once
more that awaited him.

As he entered the room he heard a small scurry
of feet near the far door, but saw nothing. He ate;
then guided by an impulse of youth, which is always
curious until it is sure it knows everything, he be-
gan to roam through the darknesses of the house in
order to find who it was that served those meats.
And the further he went, the lower the corridors ran,
till he had to bend low to avoid the huge dark beams
above him.

Sometimes he came on towering doors in the

46

THE BOX 47

darkness, and opened them and found great cham-
bers, wanly lit by such daylight as came through the
leaves of the forest, which everywhere were pressed
against the windows. In these chambers were tapes-
tried chairs set out for a great assemblage, with
ancient glories carved upon their frames; and dim
magnificencies; but the cobwebs went from chair to
chair and covered all of them over, and, descending
in huge draperies from the roof, cloaked and fes-
tooned the splendours that jutted out from the wall.
He went from door to door, but found no kitchen.
And all his quest was silent but for the sound of his
own feet.

At last, as he turned back by the wandering cor-
ridors, he heard in the distance before him the work
of the charwoman. She had ceased her sweeping
and was scrubbing on stone. He walked to the sound
of the scrubbing, and so found her, the only living
thing that he had met since he left the magician. She
was in a passage scrubbing at one stone, upon which,
as Ramon Alonzo could see, she had often worked
before, for it was all worn with scrubbing. There
was blood on the stone, but though years of scrub-
bing had hollowed it, the blood had gone deeper than
the hollowing ; so deep that Ramon Alonzo asked her
why she toiled at it.

“Tt was innocent blood,” she answered.

The young man did not even ask for that story;
the house was so full of wonder. He asked instead
what he had sought to find: “Who serves the din-
ner?”

48 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

“Imps,” she said.

“Imps?” said Ramon Alonzo.

“Imps that he catches in the wood,” she said, look-
ing up from her work on the floor.

“How does he catch them?” he asked.

“I know not,” she said. “With his spells, like as
not. He says they are no use in the wood, and so
he catches them.”

“Are there imps in the wood?’ asked Ramon
Alonzo.

“Tt is full of them,” she said.

Turning to a more profitable matter he said: “I
am learning a mystery from the Master.”

“For what price?” she asked quickly. “What
price?”

“Only half my eyesight,” he told her.

“Oh, your bright eyes!’ she sighed.

“I can see so far,” he said, “that that is a little
matter. One must needs pay something for learn-
ing.”

But she only looked wistfully at his eyes.

“When I have learned that mystery I can find
others for myself,” he said cheerfully. “You know
those jars of dust on his shelf with their names in
writing upon them: I shall be able to read what dust
they are.” And he would have told her many of the
mysteries that seemed to lie open to him. But she
interrupted him when he spoke of the jars, saying :
“T know nothing in that room. He has put a spell

against me across the lintel, so that I may not
enter.”

THE BOX 49

“Why?” he asked, remembering the cobwebs and
the great need of tidying.

“He has my shadow,” she said, “in a box in that
room.”

“Your shadow!” he said, perturbed by the grief in
- her voice.

“Aye,” she said, “and he’ll have yours there too!”

“Not he,” said Ramon Alonzo.

“And the light of your eyes,” she said sorrowfully.

But Ramon Alonzo, who already knew half the
alphabet, was far more concerned with the unravel-
ling of new wonders than he was with any price he
should have to pay, and he turned from the char-
woman’s talk with a certain impatience to be once
more engaged upon serious things. She sighed and
went on with her work on the blood-stained stone.

When Ramon returned to the room that no char-
woman ever entered he saw the magician awaiting
him, standing beside a book that made light the
secrets of reading. Once more the young man toiled
at the mystery, and by evening the alphabet was
clear to him. That which a day before held twenty-
six secrets for him, and was as a barrier to roving
thoughts, was now as an open path for them, leading
he knew not whither. To him it seemed, as he finally
mastered Z, that here was the very first and chiefest
of mysteries, since it opened a way for the living to
hear the thoughts of the dead, and enabled the living
in their turn to talk to unborn generations. Yet he
shrewdly foreboded that if the magicians should
spread their power too widely it might not be well for

50 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

the world. With evening a natural darkness blend-
ing with the gloom of the room covered up all the
mysteries, and the secrets of reading hid themselves;
and with those secrets the glories of former days
withdrew themselves further off, and lurked in dim
nooks that they had in the dark of the ages.

Then the Master of the Art bowed, and with a
wide sweep of his arm, which both opened the door
and indicated the way to it, he showed Ramon Alonzo
out, and followed and closed the door as magically
as he had opened it. They came then once more to
the room where the baked meats waited, and once
more Ramon Alonzo was seated alone. It seemed
as though the Master of the Art would not permit
himself to be seen, at least by Ramon Alonzo, en-
gaged on any work so mundane as that of eating.
The young man expressed his great satisfaction at
the wonders already revealed to him.

“It is but the due,” said the Master, “of any sprung
from your grandfather. Yet the whole art of read-
ing is naught compared with the practice of boar-
hunting: so I was once assured by that great
philosopher.”

He then withdrew, leaving the young man all
alone with his plans. But the more he planned to
make gold, the more another plan came jutting into
his mind, perpetually pushing away his original pur-
pose; a plan fantastic enough, a sentimental, gener-
ous, youthful plan, no less than a plan to find the
magician’s box, and open it and get the charwoman’s
shadow, and give it to her to dance once more at her

THE BOX 5I

heels or float away over the buttercups. Yet it was
all too vague to be called a plan at all: he had not
yet seen the box.

He rose then and went out to call her; but stand-
ing in the doorway remembered he knew not her
name. So he went to the blood-stained stone, and
she was not there, but near by he found her pail.
Awhile he wondered; then he went to the pail and
kicked it noisily, knowing that folks’ fears for their
own property are often a potent lure, and deeming
this to be wellnigh all the property the poor old
woman had. Soon she came running.

“My pail!” she said, clasping her hands.

“How shall I find your shadow,” he said, “to give
it back to you?”

“My shadow,” she wailed. “It is in a box.”

And she uttered the word box as though boxes
never opened, and anything put in a box must re-
main for ever.

“Where is the key?” he asked.

“The key?” she said bewildered by such a question.
“Tt opens to no key.”

She said this so decisively that Ramon Alonzo felt
he got no further here but must bide his time till
some opportunity should come to that dark house.
Meanwhile he must know her name, and asked her
this.

“Dockweed,” she said.

“Dockweed?” he answered. “Did your god-par-
ents call you that? They were ill disposed towards
your parents.”

52 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

“My god-parents,’ she cried. “Poor innocent
souls, they did not call me that. My god-parents,
no: they called me by a young and lovely name, they
gave me one of the earliest names of Spring. But
that was long ago, I am Dockweed now.”

“Who calls you Dockweed?” he asked.

“He does,” she said.

“But it is not your name.”

“He is master here.”

“But what is your own name?” he asked.

“It was a young name,” she said.

“T will call you by it.”

“Tt is no use now.”

“But what name did your god-parents give you?”
he asked again.

“They called me Anemone,” she said.

“Anemone,” he said, “I will get your shadow.”

“Tt is deep in a box,” she wailed.

Shadowless then she walked away from the lan-
thorn that he had brought from its hook on the wall
and left on the floor near her pail; and he began to
contemplate that it was easier to utter his gallant
confident words than to overcome the secrets of that
dark house. Then he made many plans, which one
by one appeared to be unavailing, and he was driven
again to await the coming of opportunity. As he
made and discarded his plans he ascended the ancient
stairway of stone and branches, and so came to his
room.

What tidying was possible in such a room had
been done. The great cobweb had been taken away

THE BOX 53

from the bed, and the bedclothes had been smoothed
as far as was possible when sheets and blankets had
mouldered into one. But the cobwebs amongst the
curtains had not been touched, for if these had been
torn away the curtains would have come with them;
the great rents, however, were partly filled with light
flowers; more than this the remnant of fabric could
not have supported.

He found a jug and basin of crockery with clear
spring water in the jug, and knew that Dockweed,
who had once been Anemone, had drawn it for him
in the cool of the wood. He washed with such wash-
ing as was customary near the close of the Golden
Age, then with loosened clothes lay down on the
mouldering bed. He did not extinguish the lanthorn,
because the candle in it was down to its last half-
inch. Instead he watched the shadows dancing with
every draught, and making huge bold leaps when the
wick fell down and the flame was fluttering over a
pool of grease. He watched their grace, their gaiety,
and their freedom, and thought of Anemone’s
shadow, forlorn in the dark of the box.

Surprisingly soon the blackbirds called through the
wood, and Ramon Alonzo saw that the night had
passed.

That day as Ramon Alonzo sat at his work his
mind was full of his plans to rescue the shadow,
yet he worked hard none the less, for he thought
to be a better match for the powers of the magician
when he knew at least one of his mysteries. He felt
at first a momentary compunction at thus arming

54 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

himself with one of his adversary’s weapons, but
considered that the Master was getting his price.
Indeed the gloomy room seemed unmistakably lighter
than it had been the day before, and the thought
came to Ramon Alonzo that this slight brightness,
if brightness it were, might be some of the light
that was gone from his own eyes, with which the
magician might be lighting his room. Yet not for
this brightness could he see among the dim shapes
on the floor, under cobwebs, behind the crocodiles,
any sign of such a box as seemed likely to hold a
shadow. So he bided his time and learned the mys-
tery all day, and the Master taught him well.

That day he sought out the charwoman again,
who was scrubbing still at the stone.

“Anemone,” he said, “how shall I know the box
in which he has hidden your shadow?”

“Tt is long and thin,” she said.

Then she shook her head and went on with the
scrubbing, for she despaired of him ever finding
her shadow. He would not consult her despair,
but went away to build plan after plan of his own.
And next day he discerned more closely; but even if
the room were again a little brighter he could not
distinguish such a box as she said amongst the lum-
ber that ran all round the wainscot; the gloom on the
floor was still too thick, and there were too many
crocodiles.

He worked hard during those days, and soon
was able to read the short words that had only one
syllable; and still he worked on to unravel the whole

THE BOX 55

of that mystery, and lesser wonders gradually became
clear to him from things the magician said or from
what he learned from Anemone: he learned how
his food was baked by imps at a fire in the wood,
little creatures of two feet high that could gambol and
jump prodigiously; and he knew how the Hindu
chants that haunted the air above the magician’s
house had been attracted from India, a wonder signi-
fying little to us, who can hear those chants in
Europe at the very moment men sing them upon the
Ganges, but curious at that time, even though it
took many years to lure them from India; so that
all the songs that Ramon Alonzo heard had been
sung in youth by folk now withered with age, or by
men and women long gathered to Indian tombs. He
learned that the Master’s gratitude to his grandfather
was genuine; and yet he thought he taught him the
mystery of reading not so much from gratitude as
from a desire to lure him to further studies, and so
to further fees, luring him on and on till he got his
shadow !

And so the days went by; and now to read the
words of only one syllable needed no more than
a glance, while the many-syllabled words gave up
their mysteries after little more than a brief exami-
nation; till it seemed to Ramon Alonzo that the past
and the dead no longer held secrets from him. In
such a mood he sought avidly for writing, beyond
the big black script in the Master’s book, for he
yearned to solve his own mysteries; but book there
was none in the house, outside the gloomy room

56 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

that was sacred to magic. And then one day as he
worked at some great four-syllabled word, there came
a timid knock on the door to the wood, and the
Master passing out of his sacred room like a great
black shadow driven along dim walls by a draught,
came with long strides to his door. And there was
one Peter who worked in the garden of the Tower
and Rocky Forest (sweeping the leaves in autumn
and trimming the hedge in spring), with a letter for
Ramon Alonzo from his father. And with stam-
mered apologies, and even tears, for thus disturbing
his door, he handed the parchment at arm’s length to
the magician.

CHAPTER VI
THERE IS TALK OF GULVAREZ

O the Tower beside the forest rumour came sel-
dom, for it was the last house that stood in
the open lands; on the one side the forest cut it off
entirely from converse with other folk, on the other
only the strongest rumours that blew over the fields
of men ever came so far as the Tower. But many
rumours from over the fields were reaching the
Tower now, and every one of them brought the
name of Gulvarez.

Gulvarez was a small squire of meagre lands,
twelve miles away from the Tower, where he dwelt
in a rude castle and kept two men-at-arms. They
knew his name at the Tower and knew that his pigs
came sometimes to market at Aragona, and that their
price was good, for the pigs of Gulvarez were noted.

But now they heard that the Duke of Shadow
Valley, being upon a journey, would rest a night at
his castle with Gulvarez. Nor did this rumour fade,
as such often did, that came so far over the fields,
but others came to verify it. They told how the
Duke had sent messengers to Gulvarez, praying him
to receive him in ten days’ time, when he would pass
that way on his homeward journey.

57

58 THE CHARWOMAN'S SHADOW

This was that very potent Magnifico, the second
Duke of Shadow Valley, of whose illustrious father
some tale was told in the Chronicles of Rodriguez.
He ruled over all those leafy lands that of late were
held by his father, and had amongst many honours
the perpetual right to stop any bull-fight in Spain
whilst he went to his seat, if it should be his pleasure
to arrive late; and this he did by merely holding up
his left hand, after one of his men-at-arms had
sounded a call upon a small trumpet. So rare a
privilege he exercised seldom, but it was his un-
doubted right and that of his heirs after him for
ever. The news that so serene a prince was to visit
Gulvarez spread over the countryside as fast as
gossips could tell it, and came like the final ripple of
a spent flood, lapping at its last field, to the walls of
the Tower that stood by the Rocky Forest.

“Gonsalvo,” said the Lady of the Tower, address-
ing her lord, “it is surely time that Señor Gulvarez
married.”

“Gulvarez?” he said.

“He is past thirty-five,” she answered.

“But his castle is small and dark,” said he, “and
much of it bare rock. Who would live there with
him?”

“The Duke of Shadow Valley,” she said, “is to
Stay with him on a visit.”

And so said everyone who spoke of Gulvarez, and
many spoke of him now who had thought little
about him hitherto.

The Lord of the Tower and Rocky Forest reflected

THERE IS TALK OF GULVAREZ 59

one silent moment. “But he is a greedy man,” he
said, “and ue demand a dowry such as a man
cannot give.’ t:

“It is not for us to punish his greed,” she said.
“Those that cannot pay his dowry must go without
him.”

“But the coffer,” he explained, “that I have set
apart for Mirandola’s dowry is empty. I saw it only
lately.”

“Ramon Alonzo will fill it for us,” she answered
with as much faith in her husband’s scheme as he
himself had had when it was new to him. And her
hopefulness set him pondering as to whether all was
wholly well with his scheme. And in the end of his
pondering, although he said nothing to her, he de-
cided that the time was come to renew his exhorta-
tions to his son.

For this purpose he sent Peter, from the garden,
with a message to a certain Father Joseph, who dwelt
not far away, asking him to come to the Tower. For
he needed Father Joseph in order to write a letter to
Ramon Alonzo, not deeming this to be a suitable
occasion on which to employ his own skill with the
pen, the art of which he had learned a long while
ago. And before Father Joseph came he called
Mirandola, and spoke with her in the same room as
that in which he had had the long talk with his son,
the room on the walls of which he hung his boar-
spears.

“Mirandola,” he said, “you must surely one day
‘marry, and are now well past fifteen, and it not sel-

39

60 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

dom happens that those that marry not when they
may, come soon to a time when none will marry them,
so that they are spinsters all their days. What now
think you of our neighbour Gulvarez, whom some
have called handsome?”

A look like one of those flashes from storms too
far for thunder lit for one moment Mirandola’s eyes.
Then she smiled again.

“Gulvarez?” she said to her father.

“Yes,” he said. “He tends a little perhaps to-
ward avarice,’ for he thought he had seen the look
in his daughter’s eyes, “but there are many worse
sins than that, many worse, if it be a sin at all, which
is by no means clear, but I will ask Father Joseph
about that for you, I will ask him at once. For
myself I believe it to be no sin, but a fault. But we
shall ask, we shall ask.”

“As you will,” she said.

“You like him then,” said her father, “He is not
ill to look on; two women not long since have called
him handsome. And he is a friend of the Duke of
Shadow Valley.”

“I like him not yet,” she said. “But haply if he
comem a Ei

“Yes,” said he, “he shall come to visit us.”

“If he come with his friend,” said she.

“We cannot ask that,” he said in gentle reproof.
“He could not bring the duke to visit us.”

“Then he is not his friend,” said Mirandola.

Thus lightly was brushed away the claim of Gul-

THERE IS TALK OF GULVAREZ 61

varez to the excited interest of all that neighbour-
hood.

The Lord of the Tower held up his hand to check
her hasty utterance while he thought of appropriate
words with which to reprove her error. And when
he found no suitable words at all, with which to
show his daughter she was mistaken, and yet felt
the need to speak, he said that he would consult
Gulvarez on this; which he had not intended to say.
And afterwards, conferring with his wife, they did
not find between them a ready reason for refusing
this curious whim of their dark-haired daughter ; and
in the end they decided to humour her, judging it
best to do so at such a time, though both of them
feared the arrival, if indeed he should ever come, of
that dread Magnifico and illustrious prince, the serene
and potent Duke of Shadow Valley.

Then Father Joseph came. He had walked scarce
a mile, but he had hurried to do the Lord of the
Tower’s bidding, and, being now slender no longer,
he panted heavily; and his tonsure shone warm and
damp so that there was a light about it. He held that
before all else are the things of the spirit, and in
many ways he sought their triumph on earth; and for
this purpose was ever swift to do the behests of the
Lord of the Tower, who in that small neighbourhood
at the edge of the forest had such power as is per-
mitted on earth, which Father Joseph hoped to turn
towards heavenly uses. Therefore he came running.

“In what can I serve you?” he said.

The Lord of the Tower motioned him to a chair.

62 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

“Long ago,” he said, “I learned the art of writing
in case that the occasion should ever arise on which
it should be needful to use the pen.”

“It is indeed a noble art,” said Father Joseph.
“You did well to acquaint yourself with it.”

“The occasion however,” said the other, “did not
arise. My pen hath therefore had but little practice,
save for such strokes as I may have sometimes made
in idleness to see the ink run. In short, for want of
this practice my manner of writing is slow, while
you, putting your pen daily to many sacred uses, have
a speed with it that is no doubt swift as thought.”

“Tis but a poor pen, and an aged hand,” said
Father Joseph, “but such as it is . . .”

“Now I have need of a letter to be written in
haste,” continued the Lord of the Tower, “for which
I deemed your pen to be suited beyond the pens of
any, and if you will write what I shall say the work
will be speedily accomplished.”

“Gladly will I,” answered Father Joseph, his
breath already beginning to come more easily from
the rest he had had in the chair. “Gladly will I,”
and he brought forward an ink-horn that hung at his
girdle, and drew from under his robe a roll of parch-
ment that was curled round a plume, for he had all
these things upon him; and as soon as the Lord of
the Tower had lent him a knife he had shaped the
end of the quill for a pen ina moment, and pared it
and all was ready. These things he took to a table
and dipped the pen, and was readier to write than
Gonsalvo was to think. For there was this difficulty

THERE IS TALK OF GULVAREZ 63

about the letter that he desired to send to his son: he
wished to exhort him to continue his studies with
a redoubled vigour ; such a message as Father Joseph
would smile to hear, glowing for some while after
with an inner satisfaction; but then again those
studies were nothing less than the Black Art, and
the produce of them no ordinary lucre, but a dross
that might well seem to Father Joseph to come hot
from the hands of Satan. How was he to ask that
some of this dross should be sent full soon for the
righteous purpose of settling his daughter com forta-
bly in the holy bonds of wedlock, without shocking
the good man by too open a reference to the method
of its manufacture? It cost him some moments of
thought and nigh puzzled him altogether. Then he
began thus: and the pen of Father Joseph scurried
behind his words.

“My dear son, I trust that you apply yourself dili-
gently to your tasks and that you are already well
advanced in your studies, and, in especial, in that
study which I most commended to you. That coffer
which I showed you the day before you left is in no
better state than it was then. We urgently require
somewhat that will cover the satin lining, which is in
such ill repair. Your studies will have acquainted
you with what material is best suited for this pur-
pose, and you will be able to acquire some of it more
easily than we and to send us sufficient. We have a
neighbour shortly coming to visit us, and he will
doubtless see the coffer, and, should he see the
satin lining (in its present state of ill repair), it

64 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

would shame us and Mirandola. Hasten therefore
to send us some of that material that will best cover
it. And the covering will need to be thick, for this
neighbour has shrewd eyes. Your mother sends her
love, and Mirandola. Your loving father, Gonsalvo
of the Tower and Rocky Forest.”

“What studies does your worthy son pursue?”
said Father Joseph.

“He is studying to take his proper place,” said
Gonsalvo; “learning to bea man. He is being taught
such things as concern his sphere in life; fitting him-
self for such responsibilities as will fall on him;
learning to take an interest in the proper things;
studying to concern himself with the things that
matter.”

“I apprehend,” said Father Joseph.

But still the Lord of the Tower felt that more
phrases yet were required of him, and he poured out
all those he knew which, although having no mean-
ing, could yet be introduced into conversation.
There were far fewer of them then than there are
now, so that he soon came to an end of them, but
then he quoted proverbs and popular sayings and
such circumlocution as had come down to him after
serving various needs in former ages.

“I apprehend,” said Father Joseph.

Then the Lord of the Tower took the parchment
and sealed it up with his seal. And Father Joseph
sat there rubicund, affable, blinking; a study for
anything rather than thought. Yet years of familiar-
ity with incomplete confessions had given him a

THERE IS TALK OF GULVAREZ 65

knack with the loose ends of parts of stories that en-
abled him to unravel them almost without thinking.
This he had done already with the story now before
him, but he desired to be sure, for he was a careful
man.

“I have myself,” he said, “some material that
might line a coffer, a very antique leather, or some
damask that...”

“No, no,” said the Lord of the Tower, “I should
not think of depriving you of these fair things.”

And Father Joseph knew from his haste to refuse
this offer, and his eagerness to send the letter quickly,
that he had indeed unravelled the story of Ramon
Alonzo. Behind that beneficent smile that lingered
after his speaking he pondered somewhat thus, so
fas as thoughts may be overtaken by words: “The
Black Art! An evil matter. The earning of gold by
dark means, perhaps even the making of it. Let us
see to it that it be put to righteous uses, so that it
be not entirely evil, both end and origin.”

And he began to plan uses for some of the gold
that Ramon Alonzo should so sinfully earn, blessed
and holy uses, so that not all should be evil about this
wicked work, but that good should manifestly arise
from it, like the flower blooming in April above the
dark of the thorn; and the Powers of Darkness
should see and be brought to shameful confusion.

CHAPTER VII
RAMON ALONZO FOLLOWS THE ART

S° fast the magician came striding back to his
room with the letter he had from Peter, that
Ramon Alonzo’s eye had scarce time to rove, and
had not found the long thin box for which it began
to seek. One thought alone, to rescue the char-
woman’s shadow, was filling his generous young
mind, when the magician gave him the letter that
came from his father. The letter he read alone
though the magician proffered his aid, but Ramon
Alonzo was eager to use his new learning; the
magician therefore watched his face as he read,
and learned thereby as much of the letter as Father
Joseph had guessed of its purpose, for the thoughts
of men were much the concern of them both.
When Ramon Alonzo had read the Jetter he
sighed. Farewell, he thought, to his shadow. He
began to think of it as he had never thought be-
fore. A mood came on him such as comes on us
sometimes at sunset, when shadows are many and
long; yet we never think of shadows as he then
thought of his: wistful pictures of the slender in-
tangible thing were brooding in his mind: he too
was learning how one may love one’s shadow. Such
66

RAMON FOLLOWS THE ART 67

fancies as we may sometimes have for swallows
when we see them gathering to leave us, such feel-
ings as men may have for far-off cliffs of a native
land they are losing, such longings as schoolboys
have for home on the last day of holidays, all these
Ramon Alonzo felt for the first time for his shadow.

And then he thought of his sword and reflected
that it could not be for him as it was for that poor
old woman; men had not the need, as women had,
of the protection of common things that the vulgar
set store by; if any would not speak with him be-
cause he had lost his shadow the matter could be
argued courteously with the sword; and, as for
stones, he esteemed that none would dare to throw
them, nor he care if they threw. So he looked up
at the magician and, with some echo of sorrow touch-
ing his tones, said: “Master, I fain would learn
the making of gold.”

The Master glanced at a magic book, for a mo-
ment refreshing his memory: “The fee is your
shadow,” he said.

And once more Ramon Alonzo thought of the
grace of his shadow, and the years they had been
together : he remembered its lightness, its pranks, its
patient followings; he thought of long journeys to-
gether, returning at close of day, he growing wearier
at every step and the shadow stronger and stronger.
He hesitated and the magician saw him. Then, to
close his finger and thumb upon that young shadow,
and add it to the band of which he was master, the
Master of the Art made a sudden concession, and

68 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

so closed the bargain. “Out of the gratitude I
bear to your grandfather,” he said, “I will give you
a false one to wear at your heels in its place.”

One shadow were as good as another, thought
Ramon Alonzo, unless it had any evil or sinister
shape.

“Will it be even as mine?” said he.

“T will shape it exactly so; as artists make their
pictures.”

It was enough: who would not have made such a
bargain? How could he have guessed the truth of
that duplicate shadow ?

“Before I receive my fee,” said the magician, “I
will make the copy. Stand now in the light of the
window that the copy may be exact.”

And Ramon Alonzo stood where he was told.

Then the Master, with eyes intent on the young
man’s shadow, cut a copy from out of the gloom
that hung in the air, using a blade that he held
between finger and thumb, too tiny for earthly uses;
while with his left hand, by tense signs and beckon-
ings, he held Ramon Alonzo rigid so that his shadow
might make no stir. Then he cut from the gloom
a shadow so like to the human one that when he
carefully laid it out on the floor side by side with the
true one none could have guessed which was which,
except that the new one’s heels as yet were attached
to nothing mortal. A space of light like the shape of
Ramon Alonzo hung for a while in the dark of
the air from which the shadow was cut; then the
gloom fell gradually in on it.

’

RAMON FOLLOWS THE ART 69

“See,” said the magician, pointing to the two
shadows, and the young man turned his head:
certainly no one that wished to part with his shadow
could have desired a better copy.

“The likeness,” said Ramon Alonzo, “is ad-
mirable.”

Then the magician went to the young man’s heels
and severed his shadow with the same curious in-
strument with which he had cut the other out of
the gloom; and, holding it tight in one hand, he
picked up the copy in the other and placed it nearer;
and as soon as the false shadow came near Ramon
Alonzo’s heels it ran to them.

He moved from his place and the false shadow
moved with him; there was no appreciable change;
and yet he had paid his fee to the magician, and
was about to receive that learning that had been the
goal of so many philosophers. And now the ma-
gician, still holding the shadow tight, leaned over a
crocodile, and after a moment’s rummaging, picked
up a long thin box from the dark of the cobwebs.
By its great length and narrowness and lightness,
for the magician lifted it easily with one hand,
Ramon Alonzo knew it for the shadow-box. It was
padlocked, but in the padlock was no keyhole. He
watched the Master go to his lectern and put down
the box and turn over several pages of the great
Cathayan book: he saw upon which page his eye
rested, a page with one spell upon it in three black
Cathayan characters; then the Master closed the
book and said a spell to the padlock, but in so low

70 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

a voice that Ramon Alonzo heard never a word.
The padlock opened, the Master raised the lid, and
in went his shadow. For a moment the young man
saw in the box a mass of wriggling greyness, then
the lid shut down and the keyless padlock snapped.
Then the Master took down from a shelf the
philosopher’s stone, an object no larger than a small
bird, and of texture and colour similar to what we
call fireclay, but of a slightly yellower tint; its shape
resembled the shape of the lumps of pumice we use.
This he took to his lectern and put down beside the
book, but before lecturing upon its use he explained
to Ramon Alonzo that many had sought it, as the
world knew; and many had found it, as the world
knew not. With this the philosophers made gold by
touching certain metals, upon which he would after-
wards discourse, in a certain manner, which he
would later explain; and when they had done with
the gold they usually buried it in the extremes of
Africa, or in a continent that there was to the south,
or in other places beyond the possessions of Spain,
so that the object of their experiments should not
corrupt men. He then discoursed on the power of
gold to corrupt the unlearned; but this Ramon
Alonzo had already studied in the school of the
good fathers, so he let his thoughts roam far from
the gloomy house, whither his body had not gone
since first he had entered it so many days ago. He
thought of the village of Aragona, its flowers, its
merry houses, the trees with their deep-leaved
branches bending over its happy lanes, and its sim-

ee hs ee

— eS

RAMON FOLLOWS THE ART 71

ple mortal people following their earthly callings.
So that soon he had planned to see that world again,
with its sunlight, movement, and voices, of which
he had only known for some days now through the
black letters of books.

As the magician ended his lecture on the corrupt-
ing power of gold the young man through force
of habit murmured Amen. The magician stepped
sideways, and made, swift as a parry, a sign to guard
himself that was not the sign of the Cross. And
then Ramon Alonzo felt again that confusion that
had troubled him once when he inadvertently swore,
while the Bishop of Salamanca rode near on his
mule. The bishop had not heard him and all had
been well.

The brief silence was broken by the Master of
the Art, who said: “To-morrow I will discourse on
those metals, whose structure most nearly resem-
bling the structure of gold, are therefore most adapt-
able to the changes of transmutation.”

“Master,” said Ramon Alonzo, “I pray you to
give me half a holiday.”

“For what purpose?” asked the magician.

“To see the world,” said Ramon Alonzo, “as far
as Aragona.”

“There is nothing,” replied the magician, “to be
learned in the world that is not taught in this house.
Moreover there is no error in this wood; but fare
beyond it and you shall meet much error, to the
confusion of true learning.”

“All error that I meet beyond the wood I hope

72 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

to correct by your teaching,” said Ramon Alonzo.

The ancient mind of the magician, perpetually
refreshed through the ages, and stored with wisdom
that few have time to acquire, perceived the ring of
mere flattery in this statement, and yet he was not
immune from this earthly seduction. He let Ramon
Alonzo go.

“Go in the morning,” he said, “and be back be-
fore the sun is westering.”

Ramon Alonzo rejoiced. But the magician only
cared that he had got the young man’s shadow. For
his power was chiefly over shadowy things, and he
lusted for shadows as others lust for the substance,
having learned by ages of learning the utter vanity
of substantial things. And he counted the secret
of gold well yielded up in exchange for a shadow;
for he knew how men set their hearts and hopes on
gold, and how it failed them, and wot well that these
hopes could not be built on a shadow.

And Ramon Alonzo went, light of heart, to find
the charwoman, to let her see how little, as he sup-
posed, he had lost by giving away his shadow. The
magician returned to his box and took all his
shadows out, and enjoyed amongst them awhile that
absolute power that ancient monarchs had, who had
no laws to control them or hostile neighbours to fear.

And while the magician was revelling in his power,
in the quiet and gloom of his room, Ramon Alonzo,
guided by his more human sympathies, was telling
the charwoman that he had seen the shadow-box, and
knew where it lay in the cobwebs behind a crocodile,

RAMON FOLLOWS THE ART 73

and hoped somehow to coax it open and rescue her
shadow. While she sighed and shook her head he
walked often up and down before a window so that
she saw the shadow, and could see she never sus-
pected the price he had paid for the sight he had
had of the shadow-box. And he, as he saw that
perfect copy running so nimbly behind him, be-
lieved with the blindness of youth that he had paid
nothing.

CHAPTER VIII

RAMON ALONZO SHARES THE IDLENESS OF THE
MAIDENS OF ARAGONA

Ne morning Ramon Alonzo descended blithely

the steps of timber and stone, and soon he was
listening to the magician’s lecture with his thoughts
away in the village of Aragona. The magician ex-
plained that there was but one element, of which all
material things were composed, but that the frag-
ments of this element that made all matter were vari-
ously and diversely knit together. When these ele-
mental fragments were closely associated he ex-
plained that their bulk was heavy and often smooth;
when more loosely knit, the material they formed
was lighter and of a rougher surface. To change
therefore the mere arrangement of its fragments was
to change one metal to another, at least in the es-
timation of the vulgar, who knew not that there was
but one element and that no true change was pos-
sible, all matter being only the varying aspects of
an element eternally unchangeable. Even water was
made of it and even air.

“Hence,” said the Master of the Art, “we see
the superiority of spiritual things, which are of a

74

THE MAIDENS OF ARAGONA 75

vast multiplicity, while matter is but one. Moreover
spirits have much control over matter; while matter
has neither the will nor knowledge nor power to
affect one spirit, even though it may chance, upon
a journey, to come close to a whole world. “And
the magician continued his theme, so that never was
the cause of the spirit so ably pleaded, nor matter
more humbled, nor all its pretensions more com-
pletely exposed. But Ramon Alonzo’s day-dreams
were in arbours of Aragona, and they did not re-
turn thence until the magician, looking out carefully
at the height of the sun, said: “Now you may go
down to the haunts of error until the sun is west-
ering. And now this lesson concludes. Be sure that
you have learned a greater wisdom in learning the
oneness of matter than is to be found in the chang-
ing of its manifestation out of its leaden form to
that form which is held in greater esteem by the
vulgar.”

Once he warned the young man against lateness,
who then sped blithely away, passing out through the
old green door through which he had come only once,
and seeming to see in his shadow a sprightly mer-
riness that was as eager as he to be out in the sum-
mer morning away from the gloom of the house.
The young man and the still younger shadow went
laughing and leaping together down the slope; and
soon between trunks of the trees came glimpses of
Aragona, a village sunning itself in the merry glint
of the golden Spanish air. Blithe in that glitter-
ing air as they came from the wood the shadow rev-

76 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

elled over the flowers and grass, and felt the soft
touch of small leaves that it had not known before.

It was in the afternoon that they came to Ara-
gona, but a little before the hour at which the Mas-
ter had made the shadow; it was nearly one day old.
Ramon Alonzo turned then and looked at it carefully
to see if it had paled in twenty-three hours: it was as
strong a grey as ever. Untroubled then by any ling-
ering anxiety he strode manfully into the village and
his shadow strode beside him. He glanced at it
once or twice to see that it still was there, until,
finally reassured, he forgot it entirely.

And soon he saw a gathering of maidens who had
come out to be merry together, lest there should be
a hush in the little street while all the men were work-
ing in the fields. They laughed when they saw him
come by the way from the wood, for so few came
that way. He halted a little way from them and
doffed his hat, and the blue plume floated from it
large and long. And they all laughed again.

“Who are you?” said one; and laughed to hear
herself speak out thus to a stranger.

“Don Ramon Alonzo of the Tower and Rocky
Forest,” he answered simply.

“That’s over there,” said one, “but you come from
the wood.”

“I am studying there with a learned man,” he
said.

“The Saints defend us,” cried another, “there’s
nò learned man in the wood.”

“You know the wood, señorita?” he asked.

THE MAIDENS OF ARAGONA 77

“The Saints forbid!” she said. “None goes to
the wood. There may be aught there; but there’s
no learned man.”

And at a look of alarm that he saw on their faces
he added: “His house is beyond the wood, upon the
other side.”

And the fear went from their faces and they
were merry again.

Long after he confessed to Father Joseph that
he had made this statement that fell short of the
truth or, to be exact, went over it; and Father
Joseph put the matter away with a wave of the
hand and the words, “A geographical error”: he
had heavy work to do that day giving absolution for
traffic with the Black Art.

And then one or two called out to him: “What
do you study?”

“The different branches of learning,” said Ramon
Alonzo.

And then they all cried out such questions as
“What is three times twenty-seven?” “What is nine
times ninety ?” “Can you divide a hundred and eighty
by seven?”

“That is arithmetic,’ answered Ramon Alonzo.
And they were a little awed by his learning, though
they did not cease to laugh.

Then he sought to make some remark that would
be pleasing to them, and many a happy phrase came
fast to his mind; and yet he said none of them, for
there were so many maidens, and if they should all
laugh together he feared for his tender phrases,

78 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

which were such as should have been said softly at
evening when all voices are low and laughter has all
been hushed by the rise of a huge moon.

Instead he asked them some question as to what
they did, without even wishing an answer.

“We are watching for strangers,” said the tallest.

“Why?” he asked; for she stood there waiting for
him to speak.

“For our amusement,” she said.

There was no evading their laughter.

But when they had laughed enough they turned
again to their former occupation, which had been
to watch a beetle that crawled on the road, leaving
tracks on the thick white dust; and they let Ramon
Alonzo watch it with them, for during the ordeal of
laughter not one of those frivolous eyes but had been
watching him shrewdly, and now he was judged and
favourably. Had they been less frivolous, even very
learned; had they worn robes and wigs; had they
called evidence and employed counsel, and taken days
or weeks instead of moments, that judgment would
not have been wiser.

Bells were heard now, and then, high over them,
their echoes lingering drowsily; hawks rested on
the heavy summer air; bright insects shone in it;
the idleness that charmed those southern lands and
blessed the Golden Age was theirs to toy with, and
they let the young man share it.

When the novelty of the beetle and his tracks
was lost they turned to other interests, and when
they wearied of these they changed again, follow-

THE MAIDENS OF ARAGONA 79

ing novelty yet. And so the afternoon wore on,
and the sun went slanting over their happy idle-
ness, when Ramon Alonzo suddenly saw that it soon
would be westering, and all at once remembered the
warning of the magician. So he made swift fare-
wells, meeting laughing words with words as light
as them, and strode away towards the wood. A
glance at his shadow seemed to show that it was
not so late as he feared; and then he came into the
shade of the trees.

To find the house in the wood was not easy even
though he knew the way. The closer he got the
harder it seemed to become. And when he knew
that he was within a few paces of it he could see
no sign of any house at all. Then he stepped round
the trunk of an oak-tree, and there it was. The
green door opened to him and, walking into the
house, he soon saw the darker form of the magician
standing amongst the dimness.

“You are late,” said the Master of the Art.

Ramon Alonzo made courteous apologies.

“Did anything happen?” asked the magician.

“No,” said the young man wonderingly.

“Tt is well,” said the magician.

“To what had the Master referred?” pondered
Ramon Alonzo. “What should have happened?”

Throughout his supper he wondered. Then he
drank of that magical wine, which so illumined the
mind in the brief while of its power; but the wine
only filled him with fear of the strange new shadow.

When the fear faded, as it rapidly did, he had

80 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

one more matter to ponder; for he had promised
that band of maidens that he would join them again
in two days’ time, for some purpose that they had
named, too trivial for record. He was pondering
some way of asking His Mystery for leave to go
once more to the frivolous fields that lay beyond that
wood, and looking for reasons for his request that
might not appear too flippant when exposed to the
scrutiny of the magical wisdom that the Master of
the Art had gleaned from the ages. And, as he
pondered, night came down on the wood, and the
unnatural gloom of the house grew naturally deeper.

He would have found the charwoman then to
gladden her with the talk of his gay outing, and
tales of the frivolous fields, and news of her Ara-
gona; but he knew not where she was: whatever
room she frequented lay beyond his explorations.
Then it was bed-time for him, and soon he was
asleep in his spidery room dreaming of Aragona.
And in all dreamland he saw not that band of
maidens with whom he had toyed in the golden
afternoon, but always only a face far fairer than
theirs, which he had never seen before, and yet
knew with the knowledge of dreams to be the face
of the charwoman.

CHAPTER IX
THE TECHNIQUE OF ALCHEMY

p5 the glittering morning that came even to that

wood, through layers and layers of leafiness,
Ramon Alonzo arose; and first he found the char-
woman, at work where she mostly worked, on that
deep-stained stone.

“Anemone,” he said, “I have been to Aragona.”

“Ah, Aragona,” she answered wistfully. “Was
it very fair?”

And he spoke of its beauty, resting amongst its
lanes and arbours; and the wide plains dreaming
around it, lit with a myriad flowers; and its spires
rising above the trees and the houses, taking the sun-
light direct from the face of the sun, like planets out
in ether. He spoke of the gladdening voices of its
bells—like merriment amongst a band of grave old
men—wandering through summer air. It was not
hard to praise Aragona’s beauty.

And then he told her such names as he had heard
of the folk that dwelt in the village, and little tales of
some of the older ones that he had got from the
maidens’ prattle; but to all this she shook her head

gI

82 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

mournfully and would hear more of the lanes and
the arbours. So he told of these, and the pome-
granate groves; but even then there often came over
her that mournful look again, and she drooped her
head and murmured: “Changed. All changed.”
Only when he spoke of the hills far off, and of
the tiny valley of the stream that tinkled through
Aragona, did content descend on her like an old
priest’s blessing given with outstretched hands on
some serene evening, as she listened beside her pail
overfull of a calm joy.

And when he saw her face as she knelt by her
work, sitting back on her heels, arms limp, hands
lightly folded, listening with quiet rapture to every
word that he told of the old Aragona that lived in
her ancient memories, he determined that she should
go to her village again and should take a shadow to
show in the face of all men.

So he said: “I will get you a shadow. The
Master shall make you a false one.”

He had youth’s confidence that the magician would
do this for him as soon as he asked it, and if not
he should do it because of his grandfather who
taught him boar-hunting.

But she cried out: “A false shadow! That is
of no avail. A mere piece of darkness. He has my
own good shadow: of what use are his strips of
gloom?”

And all the while his own shadow lay full on the
floor beside her, as good a shadow as any man’s.
He smiled quietly and said nothing.

THE TECHNIQUE OF ALCHEMY 83

Then the young man hastened away to the room
that was sacred to magic, for he knew the magician
awaited him. And the first thing he said when he
reached it, and saw the blacker mass of the magician
out-darkening the gloom of the room, was, “Master,
will you make me a shadow for me to give to the
charwoman ?”

“What should she do with a shadow?” he said.

“I know not,” said Ramon Alonzo, “but I would
give her one.”

“Tdleness comes of such gifts,” the magician re-
plied. “She will go to the villages with it and
flaunt it there amongst common mundane things.
It will lead her towards all that is earthly, for what
is commoner or more vain than a shadow?”

The young man knew not how to answer this.
“I would give her a present,” he said, “of some such
trifle.”

“Brooches and earthly gauds are for these uses,”
replied the Master; “but the wisdom that I have
drawn from so many ages is not for such as her.”

“I pray you give it me,” said Ramon Alonzo,
“for the sake of what my grandfather taught you of
boar-hunting.”

“The teaching that I had from that great phil-
osopher,” said the magician, “is not to be mentioned
beside the vanity of a charwoman’s shadow. Yet
since you have invoked that potent honoured name
I will make the shadow you seek. Bid her therefore
come and stand before my door that I may copy
her shadow even as artists do.”

84 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

At once Ramon Alonzo left the room that was
sacred to magic to bring the good news to the char-
woman, and found her still at that stone.

“He will make you a shadow,” he cried, “a fine
new shadow.”

But none of his eagerness found any reflection in
her wan worn face, and she only repeated with sor-
rowful scorn: “A piece of common darkness. I
know his strips of gloom.”

Then said Ramon Alonzo: “Is my shadow com-
mon darkness? Is my shadow mere gloom?”

And he pointed towards it lying beside her pail.

“Yours!” she cried. “No! Yours is a proper
shadow. A fine lithe shadow; beautiful, glossy, and
young. A good sleek shadow. A joy to the wild
grasses. Aye, that isa shadow. God bless us, there
are shadows still in the world.”

And he laughed to hear her.

“Then this shadow of mine,” he said gaily, “is
no more than what you shall have. He made it.”

“He made it?” she cried out, all with a sudden
gasp.

“Yes,” he laughed. “He made it two days ago.
And you've seen it many a time, and never knew till
I told you.”

“O your shadow!” she wailed. “And I warned
you. Your sweet young shadow in his detestable
box. O your grey slender shadow! And I warned
you. I warned you. Oh, why did you do it? I
warned you. So proper a shadow. And now
it drifts about beyond the world or wherever he

THE TECHNIQUE OF ALCHEMY 85

sends it when he takes it out of his box, doing his
heathen errands and hobnobbing with demons.”

“But this shadow,” he said, pointing to the one
that lay now at his heels, a little pale in that house,
but grey enough, as he knew, in the sunlight and on
the grasses, “is not this shadow slender and grey
enough? You have just said so.”

“T did not know,” she wailed, “I did not know.”

“Is any shadow better ?” he asked.

But she was weeping, all bent up by her pail.
He waited, and still she wept.

“Come,” he said. “The Master will make you a
shadow.”

But she only shook her head, and continued weep-
ing. And when he saw that, for whatever reason,
she was weeping over his shadow, and that nothing
he said could solace her, he left at last with the
shadow that only made her weep. As he entered the
room again that was sacred to magic he saw the
magician standing all in the midst of the gloom.

“She will not come,” said the young man.

And somewhat hastily the Master of the Art
passed from that topic. “We will then examine,”
he said, “the differences and the kinship of various
metals with gold, in order that we may choose those
that with least disturbance can be transmuted to that
arrangement of the element which forms the rarer
metal. And this, as all men know, is accomplished by
means of the philosopher’s stone, in the proper hand-
ling of which I will instruct you to-morrow, together
with all spells that pertain to it; for there is a special

86 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

dictology, or study of spells, belonging only to the
use of this stone.”

He then lay on his lectern, in view of Ramon
Alonzo, several angular pieces of metals of different
kinds, of a convenient size for handling. About
these he lectured with all that volume of knowledge
that, in his long time on Earth, he had learned con-
cerning the rocks that compose our planet.

“The arrangement of the element,” he said, “is
most near in lead to that which it takes in forming
the structure of gold. And this arrangement, the
fitting together of particle into particle, is easy to
be expounded, were it not for one thing; and but for
one thing lead were transmuted to gold with facility.
This one thing is colour. For in the final arrange-
ment of the particles, when all else is understood,
there is a certain aspect of them which produceth
colour, that of all mundane things is the least to be
comprehended.”

“Colour ?” said Ramon Alonzo, his roving youth-
ful fancy called back to that gloomy room by hearing
the Master attribute a wonder to colour, with which
he had been familiar through all the years of his life.

“Aye,” said the Master, “the outward manifesta-
tion of all material things that come to our knowl-
edge, and yet the nature of it has baffled, and is still
baffling, the studies of the most learned amongst
mankind. For this reason alone there are those that
have discarded the study of matter, caring little to
struggle with difficulty in so trivial a business as to
seek for the meaning and use of material things. To

THE TECHNIQUE OF ALCHEMY 87

other branches of study, whatever their difficulty,
we are lured by the chance of prizes beyond estima-
tion; these however concern you not, having chosen
the humble study whose lore we now consider.
Colour then depends upon the arrangement of the
element in its most subtle form. Were there only
one colour we should esteem that it was the natural
manner in which light affected surfaces. Yet are
there four, and these must therefore depend on a
variation of surface profoundly intricate.

“Now it is the nature of gold that wherever and
however it be cut, or powdered or melted or broken,
the surface presented is yellow; and the delicate ar-
rangement of particles that in other metals presents
other colours than this needs to be overcome; for,
without this, transmutation is not accomplished.
And but for this colour the changing of lead into
gold were amongst the easiest of all the traffickings
men have with material things. And if the vulgar
would accept as gold what is truly gold in its essence,
although it be black, the business were easy enough;
but it has been ascertained that in regard to this they
are stubborn.”

Then, taking up a piece of iron pyrites, he ex-
plained how by mingling various metals together the
student could acquire the colour of one, the hardness
or softness of another, and so blend them that the
weight of the whole mass should be what was de-
sired; and it should be in all respects most suited to
undergo those changes that were to be caused by the
use of the philosopher’s stone.

88 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

The lecture that he delivered that day, with all the
metals before him, upon the preparations for trans-
mutation, has probably seldom been surpassed; for
he had for the material of his discourse the wisdom
of those ages that had preceded him, while a few
centuries later the study of the philosopher’s stone
fell much into desuetude. Yet who shall estimate
the relative excellence of lectures on transmutation,
seeing that they have ever been given in gloom and
secrecy to classes of ones and twos?

And Ramon Alonzo listened docilely; not, as
might have been thought, because to learn transmu-
tation was the object of his sojourn in that dim
house, but because he awaited a favourable oppor-
tunity, an amiable mood in the magician, when he
might ask for leave once more to return to the fields
of frivolity. And not till evening came and the
magician banished him from his sacred room, in
order that, as Ramon Alonzo knew, he might play
some secret game with his captive shadows, did the
young man learn with shrewd intuitions of youth
that he cared far more for the fee that he had in
his box than for any learning he might impart as his
part of the bargain.

He did not look for Anemone that evening, for
he saw that the sight of his shadow troubled her,
believing her overwrought by the loss of her own,
and deciding to renew the magician’s offer in a few
days when she was calmer. That she should have a
shadow again he was determined, and walk without
hurt or taunt in her Aragona.

THE TECHNIQUE OF ALCHEMY 89

As he went to his room that night up the stair-
way of stone, with a candle all blobs of tallow and
ragged wick spluttering within a lanthorn, he had
an idea for a moment on one of the steps that there
was something wrong with his shadow; but he
looked again, holding the lanthorn steadier, and the
idea or the fear passed.

CHAPTER X
THE EXPOSURE OF THE FALSE SHADOW

HE work of the morning was to learn the cor-
rect application of the smooth philosopher’s
stone to the surfaces of metals that had been already
so blended that they approached in texture and colour
to the texture and colour of gold, and were thus al-
ready prepared to receive the changes to be given
their element by the touch of the stone. “Without
this preparation,” the magician warned his pupil, “the
change in the element is too violent, and has in
former times not merely wrecked, but entirely
transmuted, the houses of certain philosophers;
whereby the world has lost such store of learning
as may in no wise be estimated.

“Nor is it well to attempt the change of the ele-
ment in too great a bulk at one time, as men have
done when too greatly drawn by the lure of material
things, seeking to change whole mountains; which,
far from bringing them gold, has been the cause of
volcanoes.

“Now the application of the philosopher’s stone `
is made in this manner: having chosen suitable
metals to avoid too enormous a change, in such bulk

90

EXPOSURE OF FALSE SHADOW 91

as will cause no calamity, pass this stone over the
surface with the exact rhythm that there is in the
spell you use. There are many spells as there are
many metals.” And he brought from a box in two
handfuls a bundle of small scrolls.

Ramon Alonzo, who had believed he was about
to be shown the secret, saw then, as the magician
slowly sorted the scrolls, that there was still much to
be taught. He had been patient all the day before;
but now the light that shone through the volume of
leaves, coming down cliffs of greenness, called to his
inner being with so imperious a call, that it almost
seemed as though Spain and the musical summer, and
the mighty sun himself and the blue spaces of ether,
all longed for Ramon Alonzo to wander to Aragona
to toy with the idle maidens through empty hours of
merriment. And a bird called out of the wood, and
Ramon Alonzo felt that he must go.

“Master,” he said, “may I go once more to the
fields of error? I have some business there not
worthy for your attention; yet to myself it is press-
ing.”

The magician made a certain show of reluctance,
to conceal the truth that he cared for little but his
fee of the young man’s shadow, and meant soon to
send him away, content with the vain acquirements
of transmutation, for so it seemed to the magician.
And then he gave him leave; but, with an earnestness
far more real and a vehemence that seemed genuine,
he warned his pupil again to be back before evening.
And swift as dust on draughts that sometimes

92 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

moaned in those chambers, and gay and light as the
leaves, away went Ramon Alonzo. And once more
the golden morning was before him as he came down
from the wood, and Aragona twinkled in the
distance. And partly his heart was full of a frivol-
ous laughter and partly a wistful feeling all grave
and strange, for the spires of Aragona moved even
youth to solemnity ; and none knew how this was, for
the spires, were bright and glad.

He gave one glance at his shadow to see that all
was well with it; then strode over glittering grass
with the shadow striding beside him: and so he came
untired to the edge of the village, and saw there the
band of maidens where they had promised to be.
Blithe on the idle air came the merriment of their
welcome.

And not a levity that blew their way all in the
azure morning, and not a vanity that reached their
thoughts, going from mind to mind, but they wel-
comed and toyed with and acclaimed as new. So
they passed the morning, and when the heat of the
day began to increase they loitered to a lane that had
one long leafy roof, and there they sat in the shade
and ate fruit that they had in baskets and listened
while each in turn recounted the idlest tales. And the
meed of every tale that pleased was laughter, and
not a learned conceit nor studious fancy was allowed
to intrude in any tale they told. After the wisdom
that burdened the house in the wood, and the learn-
ing with which its very gloom was laden, its ancient
store of saws and sayings and formule, Ramon

EXPOSURE OF FALSE SHADOW 93

Alonzo rejoiced at every quip that they uttered and
every peal of laughter that followed each quip, as the
traveller over Sahara welcomes the pools in the
mountains and the bands of butterflies that gather
about them.

In the heavy leafy shade they laughed or
talked continually, while all round them Spain slept
through the middle hours of the day. And many a
tale they told of surpassing lightness, too light to
cross the ages and reach this day, even if they were
worthy ; but lost with all the little things that founder
in the long reaches of Time, to be cast on the coasts
of Oblivion, amongst unrecorded tunes and children’s

reams and sceptres of unsuccessful emperors.

But when shafts of sunlight slanted, and voices
from beyond their lane showed that Spain was awak-
ing, and the grandeur of the sun was past and he
grew genial again, then they loitered out into the
light, straying towards the hills. And, as they
wandered there, other young men joined them, leav-
ing their work till the morrow, for morrows they
said would be many; young dark-skinned men with
scarlet sashes flashing around their waists. Then the
party drifted asunder as shallow streams in sunny
sandy spaces when the water takes many ways, all of
them gold and light-laden. And a tall dark maiden
drifted with Ramon Alonzo, and one more slender
than she; and the first was named Ariona and the
second Lolun. And sometimes fair fancies came to
Ariona, by which that band of maidens was often
guided because they were strange and new. But the

94 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

slender form of Lolun was driven by any fancy, in
whatever mind it arose: a song would guide her, or
any merriment lead her, as though she had less
weight than these invisible things, as the thistledown
has less weight than the south wind.

And as they drifted slowly towards the low west-
ern hills Ramon Alonzo saw that the sun was wester-
ing, and remembered the warning of the magician.

“I must go,” he said.

“Go?” said the two maidens, as though to leave
that low sunlight to go alone through the wood were
some monstrous imagination.

“I must return to the learned man with whom I
study beyond the wood,” he said. “He desires me
to be back with him this evening.”

“Oh!” said Lolun. She was shocked to hear of
such a demand.

“He wishes to investigate with me one of the
branches of learning.”

Then the two girls’ laughter on the mellow air
rang out against learning, and trills of it floated as
far as the hills, and echoes came back to the fields,
and went wandering fainter and further; and in all
the ways that heard them there was no thought of
learning. And Ramon Alonzo’s plans were laughed
away, as in later days the Armada was broken by
storm, and so he forsook his intention to return to
the house in the wood. He long remembered those
trills of merry laughter, for not for long was he free
of care again.

Driven then by those gusts of laughter as small

EXPOSURE OF FALSE SHADOW 95

ships are by light breezes, he came with the girls to
the hills when the sun was low. And drifting all
aimless on, they went up the slope, prattling and
laughing and straying, led by whatever fancy led
Ariona. And her fancy was to see the willowy lands
that lay beyond the hill, with their trees and the
shadowed grass looking strange in the evening. At
such a place and at such a time, she felt, whatever
there was of faery in our world would show clear
hints for any girl to guess. And the further they
got the eagerer grew Lolun to find whatever it was
for which Ariona was searching. And, these im-
pulses holding fair, Ramon Alonzo still went on be-
fore them.

And so they came to the ridge of the hill and
saw the willowy lands. The low sun glittered in their
faces, no longer a flashing centre of power avoided
by human eyes; but a mystery, an enchantment, al-
most to be shared by man; and wholly shared by
solitary trees, and bands of shrubs, far off on the
wild plain, which now drew a mystery about them,
as men in the tended fields began to draw their
cloaks. They gazed some while in silence at those
strange lands, which none saw from any window in
Aragona; seeking their mystery which was almost
clear and was coming nearer and nearer ; and finding
it, but for the tiniest shrubs and shadows, amongst
which it hid, though barely, its secret enchantment.
And as they looked at that strangeness, part spell
and part blessing, descending on all those acres out
of the evening, not a ripple of laughter shook the

96 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

calm of their wonder. And then a cold wind blew
for only a moment, rising up from its sleep in no-
where and moving to distant sails; and they stirred
as the wind went by, and their search was ended.

They turned round then to look back at Aragona,
with the late light on its spires, and its windows flash-
ing; and saw men drawing toward it home from the
fields. They stood there wondering to see how far
they had come; waiting in idleness for the next whim
to guide them, a little band of three with the young
man in the middle. The slope they had just climbed
lay golden below them.

Then Ariona screamed. Again she screamed be-
fore Lolun had followed the gaze of her terrified
eyes. Then scream after scream went up from
Lolun also.

Ramon Alonzo stood silent in sheer amazement
between them. Then they sprang away from him
making the sign of the Cross. But just as they
sprang away Ramon Alonzo saw for a moment,
amidst the shining grass, his shadow between their
shadows; theirs lying so far along the golden slope
that they ran a little way out to the level fields, his
only five feet long.

CHAPTER XI
THE CHILL OF SPACE

“QO it does not grow,” said Ramon Alonzo
bitterly.

He was all alone on the hill and the girls had
fled. Alone with a mere strip of gloom; a thing
refused by the charwoman. So this was the
shadow he had received so confidently, believing
he had obtained from magic something without pay-
ment. A mere patch of darkness that neither
dwindled nor grew. In a flash his memory went
back to the suspicion he had suddenly had on the
stair, and recalled how the shade of the trees in
the heat of the day had hidden the evil secret a little
longer. He remembered how two evenings ago it
had seemed not so late as it was; that was his lying
shadow. But he no longer thought of it as a shadow
at all; it was mere art, and the Black Art at that. It
counterfeited what his own shadow had been in the
middle of that fatal afternoon, and could no more
grow than shadows in pictures grow.

What should he do? A chill came into the eve-
ning, depressing all his thoughts, and his fancy
roamed to the long thin magical box, in which his
young shadow lay. He pictured it locked in the

97
ad

98 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

gloom with other lost shadows, fallen a slave to
magic. He thought of its blitheness at dawn, on
dewy hills in Spring; and then he looked at the
sinister thing beside him, an outcast amongst the
lengthening shadows as he was now an outcast
amongst men. At that moment he would sooner
have been shadowless like the charwoman than to
have that mockery there looking ludicrous in the
landscape, and seeming to taunt him with the folly
he had committed after warning enough. He turned
his back on it and his eye fell then on the willowy
lands a little to the left of the sun, and he saw the
great trees far off with a new jealousy. Almost
silvery their great shadows looked, slipping over the
grass in the evening; and he saw the beauty of
shadows as he had not seen before, and saw with
envy. It had come to this already, that the man
was jealous of trees.

From the grand substantial forms of the distant
trees, and those dark comrades that vouched for
them as being material things, he bitterly turned
away, and looked once more to the spires of Ara-
gona, with his gaze held high to avoid the mockery
at his feet. But not by lifting his gaze could he
escape the thought of his folly, for now he saw
Lolun and Ariona hastening home over the fields,
and knew he had lost his part in material things.

Some slight regret, some reluctance, Lolun showed
as she went, which Ramon Alonzo was not able to

see. He only felt all tangible things were against
him.

THE CHILL OF SPACE 99

“Must we leave him?” said Lolun after they had
run for a while.

“He is not earthly,” cried Ariona.

“We might stay for only a little,” said Lolun.

“It were sin,” said the other, “though for only a
moment.”

“Must we never sin?” sighed Lolun.

“Sin? Yes,” said Ariona, ‘where there is absolu-
tion. But this . . .” and she shuddered.

“This?” whispered Lolun, half terror, half curios-
ity.

“He has had traffic with what we may not name.”

And, as Ariona said this, the last of the sun’s
huge rim disappeared from the hill, and a chill
came into the air; and their doubts all turned to
fears in the hour of bats. So they hurried on and
did not stop to rest, and came all weary into Ara-
gona; and there the news spread quicker than their
tired feet could carry it that Ramon Alonzo had
trafficked in the gaudy wares of damnation.

And he, with that pitiable ware he had got, that
tawdry piece of gloom, stood all alone on the hill in
the deepening gloaming, making helpless human
plans that he hoped to set against magic. There was
his sword, that he had never used yet on any serious
business; he would confront the magician with its
slender point and make him open the shadow-box;
its purpose was to rescue the oppressed, then why not
those hapless shadows that lay with his own in the
box? And then there was the spell he had seen in
the book, with which the Master opened the lock of

100 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

his shadow-box. But he could not read the spell,
which was in Chinese; and did not know with what
art from his stores of magic the Master would meet
the passes of his merely terrestrial sword. Vain
plans that melted away as fast as he formed them.

Then the sun set; and in the sudden loss of glad-
ness that all things felt, the faint melancholy that
tinged wild grasses and tended gardens, Ramon
Alonzo had comfort. For a little while he seemed
to have lost nothing that all nature had not lost: he
did not know that the word had gone out “The man
is shadowless,”’ and that he would have to travel far,
and faster than that rumour, to find any kindly
human welcome again. And now it was the hour
when all things sought their homes, and Ramon
Alonzo turned towards the wood.

He came to the wood before the gloaming faded,
but amongst those oaks it was as dark as night.
Once more he pried for the house; once more its
dark door was before him all of a sudden as he
picked his way round a tree. It stood ajar as though
tempting whatever was lost in the wood to enter that
sombre house and be robbed at least of its shadow.

Again as Ramon Alonzo went in through that door
he saw the magician’s presence increasing the gloom
of the hall.

“You are late,” said the magician.

“T am late,” said Ramon Alonzo, and strode on
to pass the magician, his left hand resting lightly
on his sword-hilt. When the Master of the Art saw
Ramon Alonzo’s humour he lost some of his ease,

THE CHILL OF SPACE IOI

and stood there pondering answers to what his guest
should say; for he saw that the great defect in his
artificial shadow had by now been detected, and was
ever anxious that nothing mortal should guess ought
of his dealings with shadows. But Ramon Alonzo
said nothing. He walked on silently into the deeps
of the house, and presently the magician turned away
and went sombrely back to the room that was sacred
to magic, and unpadlocked his shadow-box ; and soon
in a riot of power exerted on helpless shades, he for-
got all the irk he had felt at having one of his crooked
dealings discovered.

But the young man called Anemone through the
house; and she heard him and came from the nook in
which she was resting, and met him in one of those
dark passages, and led him back to the nook. It was
a space beneath a wooden stair that ran whither she
knew not; once in every generation she would hear
the steps of the magician resounding above her head,
going gravely up the stair upon which she was not
permitted, and coming blithely down. One side
of the space was open to the passage, but in the part
that was sheltered by the stair she had a heap of
straw to lie on, and all her pans and pails. Old
brooms against the wall seemed to add to the dark-
ness. She led him silently there before they spoke,
seeing his attitude full of trouble if it was too dark
for her to see his face; and there they sat on the floor
on patches of straw, and she began to light a candle,
a thing she had saved up out of old pieces of tallow.

“T have found out about his shadow,” he said.

102 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

“Ah yes,” she said, “a mere piece of gloom.” She
knew he must have discovered it when she saw how
late he was out.

“Tt will not grow,” he said.

“Never an inch,” she answered.

“You warned me,” said Ramon Alonzo.

She only sighed. She had known that the
magician was after his shadow, but knew not all
his tricks. Had she dreamed that he would have
dared to offer one of his wretched pieces of dark-
ness even in part exchange for a good human shadow
she would have warned Ramon Alonzo of the
specious imitation. And now she regretted she had
not. And as she sighed a sudden tremor shook her,
and shook the wretched candle she had just lighted,
and convulsed her again and again, till the straw
upon which she sat rustled audibly with her trem-
blings. And Ramon Alonzo suddenly trembled too,
as he had trembled once before in that strange house,
and previously he had put his tremors down to the
draughts and the damp, but now they were more
violent.

“It is our shadows,” said the charwoman, leaning
towards Ramon Alonzo and speaking with chatter-
ing teeth.

“Our shadows?” said he.

“They are out on dreadful journeys,” she replied.

“Whither?” said he.

“Who knows?” she said. “And we are feeling
their terror.”

“Has he that power?” he gasped.

THE CHILL OF SPACE 103

“Aye,” she said. “He is sitting there now over
his shadow-box, taking them out and driving them
off by the dreadful spells he uses, to carry messages
for him to spirits far from here. And their misery
and terror touches us, for so it is with shadows.”

Raton Alonzo was shivering now with a fear
that was strange to him. The charwoman watched
him a moment.

“Yes, yes,” she said, “he has our shadows out.”

“Are they far from the house?” he asked between
chattering teeth.

“Beyond Earth,” she answered.

This he could scarcely believe. But now a gust of
more dreadful shivering shook her, and he too felt
the touch of a sudden chill.

“They are beyond the paths of the planets now,”
she said. “I know that cold. It is the chill of
Space. Yes, that’s Space sure enough. It’s little
warmth enough that they get from the planets; just
a little from some of the larger ones, and that’s some-
thing. But this is Space: I know it. They’re right
out there now.”

She huddled her hands almost into the flame of
the candle, but that did no good, for the shudders
that come from lost shadows go deeper than skin or
bones. They chill not merely the blood but the very
spirit.

And the chill and the awe of Space gripped also
Ramon Alonzo.

“Why does he send them there?” he whispered to
her, for his voice had sunk to this.

104 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

“Ah, we don’t know that,” she said. “Hes too
deep and sly. But he has friends out there, and he’s
likely sending them, poor shadows, to one of them, to
bow before one of them and give it a message, and
dance to it and then come back to the shadow-box.”’

“Hell bring it back?’ asked Ramon Alonzo
quickly.

“Oh yes,” she said, “he always brings them back.
He won’t part with his shadows.”

“What spirits are they?” he asked.

“Evil spirits,’ she answered.

And then they sat silent awhile, trembling and
wan, while their nerves were numbed by an unearthly
cold. And if the charwoman’s aged frame was more
easily shaken by tremblings, yet the young heart of
Ramon Alonzo seemed to feel more vividly his
shadow’s distress.

“Often the spirits pass close to Earth on a journey,
and he sends his shadows a little way out to greet
them. But they are right beyond that now, poor
shadows,” she said.

“Why does he send them so far?” he asked.

“Lust of power,’ she said. “Cruel savagery.
I know his piques and his ways. He doesn’t like
your finding out the trick that he played you. I’ve
known him make the shadows dance for hours be-
cause I haven’t worked hard enough for him. And
I’ve been all tired after that, worn out and years
older.”

Somehow her courage in speaking at all when
racked by those terrible tremors, and in speaking

THE CHILL OF SPACE 105

against the grim man to whose tyranny they were
subject, brought a warmth to Ramon Alonzo.

And soon she said: “They are turning homeward
now.”

Then they sat silent both waiting. And now
the terror had gone, and gradually some slight thaw-
ing, too faint to be called a glow, touched the un-
earthly cold that had gripped them so sorely.
Whether it was some warmth that the shadows got
from Jupiter, or from the sun itself, neither Ramon
Alonzo nor the wise old charwoman knew; and at
last the charwoman leaned back against the wall
with a certain content again on her worn old face:
“They are back in the box,” she said.

And suddenly he stood up, his left hand dropping
upon his sword-hilt, a fine figure there in his cloak,
even in that dim light.

“I will take your shadow,” he said, “and he shall
torment it no more. My own must stay in the box
because of the bargain I made with him and the
need that I have for gold, but I will bring back
yours to you and he shall torment it no more.”

He had said the same before, and she had smiled
it away; but he was so vehement now that, if reso-
lution could have accomplished it, she saw the thing
had been done. And yet she shook her head.

“T have my sword,” he said.

But she looked at it pityingly.

“He has more terrible things,” she answered
sadly.

And at that he realized that in that dark house

106 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

more store must be set by immaterial things than by
those that men can handle. And he thought of the
spell.

“Then I will open the box while he is away,” he
said. “And you shall have back your shadow and
mine will stay in the box.”

And again she warned him that the shadow-box
opened to no key.

“T have seen the spell in his book,” he said, “unto
which the padlock opens!”

“Can you utter it?” said she.

“No, it is in Chinese.”

Now there was at that time no Chinaman in
all the lands of Spain. And the ships of Spain had
no traffic with Chinese lands. Yet Ramon Alonzo
pondered this most faint hope, and leaving the pails
and brooms went thoughtfully thence,

CHAPTER XII
MIRANDOLA DEMANDS A LOVE-POTION

HEN Ramon Alonzo appeared next day in
the room that was sacred to magic the ma-
gician was there before him.

“You have a fine strong shadow,” said the ma-
gician.

Certainly it lay black and bold on the floor; and,
since it was then as many hours before noon as
the making of the shadow had been after it, it was
just as long as the shadows of other men. But not
a word did Ramon Alonzo answer. He went in-
stead to his seat, and there sat waiting to receive
more of the learning for which he had paid so much.
The gold must needs be got for his sister’s dowry,
even at the cost of those tremors and terrors, against
which fortitude that endured the ills of the body
seemed of so little avail; and after that, if other plans
failed, he might become so wealthy with the gold
he should make that he would buy back his shadow,
or if the magician paid no heed to gold he might
find those who did, and arm them and go against
the house in the wood and capture the spells and
the shadow-box. But his head was too full of plans

107

108 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

for any one to ripen; and then the voice of the ma-
gician came breaking across them suddenly. “When
by blending the metals,” he said, “till their texture
is nearest to the texture of gold, we have made the
preparation that is meet, the philosophers choose
from amongst such scrolls as these a spell that is
best suited to the material to be dealt with. And
having read it aloud in its own language, whatever
language it be; for these spells are ever written in
the tongue of whatever sage has been first to com-
pose them; and the Persians have for long been
adept at this, as well as some few of those that
adore Vishnu,” at which name he paused and bowed;
and, as he bowed, one knocked on the door to the
forest, and the echoes went roaming uncertainly, as
though lost, through the house.

At the sound of the knock the magician swept
out of the room, once more reminding the young
man of a spider when some lost thing touches his
web. And, left alone in the room that was sacred to
magic, Ramon Alonzo again considered his dark
master, whom he regarded henceforth as his op-
ponent, from whom the charwoman’s shadow must
yet be won. The Master was keeping to his bar-
gain, thought Ramon Alonzo, and it was a hard bar-
gain, and in the matter of the false shadow a sly
one, and the Master knew that he had found this
out.

Suddenly his eye fell on the great book, and he
left his speculations; which, considering the depths
to which the magician’s character ran, had gone

A LOVE-POTION 109

but a little way; and he rose up, led by a more prac-
tical thought, and turned the Cathayan pages, and
came again to the three great syllables of the spell
that opened the box. Alas that they were in
Chinese.

A swift idea came to him. The padlock knew
Chinese, for he had seen it open. He seized the
book and carried it to the shadow-box and, leaning
over a crocodile, showed the open page to the pad-
lock, holding it still before it; and the padlock
never stirred. He rose up then from the dust and
gloom and replaced the book on the lectern, and
only just in time, for the steps of the magician came
resounding back to the door and he came again to
his room that was sacred to magic. He gave one
scornful glance at the book on the lectern, knowing
“it had been moved; and in the scorn of that look
Ramon Alonzo’s disappointment grew, for he saw
not only that he had failed but that the attempt
had been hopeless.

“A yokel is at the door of the forest,” he said.
“He has a message to you that the oaf will give
only to you.”

Ramon Alonzo went in silence, still heavy with
failure, and came to the door to the wood. And
there outside was Peter, who had knocked on the
old green door and had then run back a little way
into the wood. Thence he had spoken with the
magician. .And now to the door that he dreaded,
while his fears expected anything that they were
able to guess, there came his young master.

110 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

“Young master,’ cried Peter, “young master.
I have brought you a letter from Donna Mirandola.
; And does he treat you well? Does he feed you well?
You'll be very learned now, master. The big boar-
hound is eating well.”

“Is he strong?” asked Ramon Alonzo.

“As strong as ever,” said Peter.

“Now the Saints be praised,” said Ramon Alonzo,
reverting to an old way of speech that he did not
use in that house.

“Here is the letter, master,’ said Peter, draw-
ing it out from his cloak. “But, master, there is
a word with blots upon it; that word should be
‘love-potion,’ and not the word that is writ under
the blots.”

“Love-potion,” repeated Ramon Alonzo.

“Aye, master; and not the word under the blots.
Donna Mirandola bid me say it.”

“That is well,” said Ramon Alonzo.

The letter was written in the same clear hand as
the one that had come from his father, and was
short, as the young man saw with joy, for he wished
to read not too slowly before Peter, and fast he
could not go.

It said: “To Don Ramon Alonzo. Do not send
gold, but send me a prayer-book. ‘Your loving
sister, Mirandola.”

Over the word “prayer-book” were the marks of
small fingers that had been dipped in ink,

“Say I will send that prayer-book,” said Ramon
Alonzo.

A LOVE-POTION III

“Aye master,” said Peter, “and is there any
more ?”’

“Feed the big boar-hound well,” said Ramon
Alonzo.

“Aye, indeed, master,’

“Farewell.”

“Farewell, young master, farewell. Please God
we'll hunt boars in the winter.”

And Peter turned slowly away and walked a few
paces slowly, then faster and faster till he got away
from the wood.

Ramon Alonzo pondered bitterly: he had sold
his shadow for gold, and now gold was not needed.

He had not yet learned the whole art of transmu-
tation. Would the magician give back his shadow?

And Mirandola must have her love-potion, and
the charwoman have her shadow out of the box.
He had much to do if his plans were to come to
fruition.

Back he went to the gloomy room that was sacred
to magic. “I have no need of gold,” he said.

“Tt is a worthless metal,” replied the magician.
“The philosophers sought it for the interest they
took in re-arranging the element. But the stuff
itself was nought to them. They buried it where I
have said, and have often warned man of its worth-
lessness; in testimony whereof their writings re-
main to this day.”

“T would learn no more of it,” said Ramon
Alonzo.

“No?” said the magician.

7

said Peter.

112 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

“T pray you therefore give back my shadow,” he
said.

“But it is my fee,” said the magician.

“I would learn other things,’ said the young
man, “for other fees. But this fee I pray you re-
turn.”

“Alas,” said the magician, “you have learned
much already.”

“Of this matter nothing,” said Ramon Alonzo.

“Alas, yes,” replied the magician. “For you have
learned the oneness of matter, and that there is
but one element. And this is a great secret to the
vulgar, who believe there are four. And doubtless
they will, in their error, discover even more than
these four before ever they come to learn that there
is but one, which you have learnt already, and this
is my fee for it.’ And he stooped and rapped the
shadow-box somewhat sharply.

“You gave me a shadow to wear in its place,”
said the young man.

“T will make you a longer one,” replied the ma-
gician.

Ramon Alonzo saw that words would not do it,
and that whatever he said would be verbally parried
with skill.

“Then give me a love-potion,” he said.

“I do not dispense these things,’ said the ma-
gician haughtily.

“Then teach me how they are made, and not the
making of gold.”

The magician pondered a moment. It was all

A LOVE-POTION 113

one to him. He had his fee safe in the shadow-box.
He despised equally gold and love, and cared not
which he taught. Some etiquette he had learned
from some older magician seemed to prompt him to
give something for his fee.

“Gladly,” he answered briefly.

Then Ramon Alonzo sat down without a word,
thinking of Mirandola.

He had never enquired the reason of anything
that she asked for. It was Mirandola, with eyes like
a stormy evening. Thoughts passed behind those
eyes such as never visited him. Mirandola knew.
It is hard to say how the flash of those eyes swayed
him. He never sought to know, and never ques-
tioned Mirandola’s demands.

“By the admixture of crocodile’s tears with the
slime of snails,” came the voice of the Master, “the

asis of all love-potions is constructed. Unto this
is to be added a powder, obtained by pounding the
burned plumage of nightingales. Flavour with attar
of roses. Add a pinch of the dust of a man that
has been a king, and of a woman that has been fair
two pinches, and mix with common dew. Do this
by light only of glow-worms and saying suitable
spells.”

Ramon Alonzo, following the gestures that the
Master made as he spoke, saw on the shelves the
ingredients that he mentioned. He saw a jar hold-
ing attar of roses beside one named “Dust of Helen.”
He saw two jars side by side called “Dust of
Pharaoh” and “Dust of Ozymandias,” one of them

114 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

probably Rameses. He saw a vial labelled “Croco-
dile’s Tears.” All that he needed seemed there; out-
side in the wood the glow-worms burned, and there
were plenty of snails.

The lesson went on drearily, the magician inton-
ing various spells that the young man learned by
heart or believed he learned, and naming alternative
ingredients that had of old been used in more torrid
lands. Of the ingredients Ramon Alonzo was so
sure that no mistake was possible; if ever he erred
at all it was with the spells.

CHAPTER Alll

RAMON ALONZO COMPOUNDS THE POTION
EXT morning Ramon Alonzo rose full early,
all impatience to do Mirandola’s errand, all
eagerness to exercise his new skill. That day the
magician was to teach him more spells and alter-
native ingredients, doubtless with quips at the ex-
pense of Matter, scoffs at the vanity of the am-
bitions of Man, quotations from ancient philoso-
phers, and lore of his own seeking. An opportunity
not given to every young man; for this master had
gathered and stored with his own hands the fruits
of many ages, besides the lore he was heir to from
former philosophers.

When Ramon Alonzo entered the room that was
sacred to magic he saw with a sudden joy that this
opportunity was not yet to be his. For he had come
down the spiral stair of timber and stone by the
palest earliest light, and the magician was not yet
about. But with his new learning glowing bright
and fresh in his mind he ran a sure eye over the
Master’s shelves and saw the ingredients he needed.
Then he took from a jar some dust of Ozymandias
and mixed it in right proportions with some of the

115

116 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

dust of Helen. His shrewd young mind guessed
well the aphorisms that the Master would have ut-
tered over these pinches of dust; for, secure with his
doses of elixir vite, he neglected few chances to
mock the illusions of Man. Attar of roses and
crocodile’s tears were close by in their vials, and
the dried skin of a nightingale hung on a nail near.
He procured a flame and burned some of the feathers
and pounded them into a powder, and mixed it up
with the rest. Then he hastened towards the wood,
anxious to gain the door before the magician came,
and to do the work unaided; for he knew that the
aged had often ideas of their own, setting undue
store by ritual and unprofitable quotations, and hind-
ering eager work that the young would do in a
hurry. He came to the door to the wood and listened
a moment acutely. Not a sound came from the cor-
ridors; the magician was not yet afoot. The dew
was yet in the wood, and of this he got a small
cupful, gathering it drop by drop from the bent
blades of grass; and here he found large snails and,
after a while, a glow-worm. And these he carried
into a hollow oak where the darkness was deep
enough to be lit by the glow-worm; and in the light
of that he put all his mixture oah, saying the
while a spell that had great repute in Persia. The
viscid substance he poured into a vial, out of the
common mortar in which he compounded it, and
carefully corked the vial and turned back towards
the house in the wood. And, attracted by the croon
of the curious Persian spell, or else by the scent of

THE POTION COMPOUNDED 117

the love-potion, small things of the wood were
lured to follow him. He heard the pattering of their
feet behind him; but if he turned they were away
on the other side of the oak-boles, and if he went
back to a tree behind which one hid and walked
round to the other side, he heard small finger-nails
scratching, always on the far side from him, and
knew the small creature had gone up the tree and
slipped round it whenever he moved, so as to keep
the trunk between it and anything human. They
were only imps, light creatures composed of the
idleness and mystery of the wood, and led now by
curiosity, which was their principal motive. Soon
the pattering of footsteps ceased, for they dared
come no nearer to the magician’s house, but sat down
behind their trees uttering little cries of wonder.

When Ramon Alonzo returned to the house in the
wood he sought at once for the charwoman, and
found her in her nook amongst all her pails.

“Anemone,” he said, “I am going back to my
home, for my sister has need of a love-potion.”

“For what purpose needs she that?” said the char-
woman.

“I know not,” said Ramon Alonzo, “but she
desired one.”

“Is she not young?” said the charwoman.

“Aye,” said Ramon Alonzo, “but perhaps she
wished to make sure.”

“Aye, they are sure, those potions,” said the char-
woman, for she knew much of magic, having minded
that house for so long. “Only let him see her

118 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

first after he hath drunk of the potion, or even be
nearest to her at that time, and he hath no escape
after that from magical love. You have the potion
there?” For Ramon Alonzo had the vial in his
hand.

“Aye,” said he, “I made it myself in the wood.”

“He taught you how?”

“Yes,” said Ramon Alonzo.

“And for that you gave your shadow,’
sorrowfully.

And he would have explained to her that he had
learned more than this, but she would not heed him,
only sitting on the straw with dejected head, and
mourning to herself over his shadow.

Then seeing her sorrowful face, and the gloom of
that dark nook, and the sombre melancholy of all
things round her, he sought to persuade her to flee
from the house in the wood, and he would escort
her into Aragona. But she only said: “The world
is harder than his house.”

He reasoned with her, saying suave things of the
world; but she only answered: “There is no place
for me there.”

And then he said: “I will come back for you,
and when I come I will get back your shadow.”

And she shook her head sorrowfully as she al-
ways shook it whenever he spoke of that.

“But I have a plan,” he said.

And when she only shook her head again he told
her what his plan was.

“I saw the spell,” he said, “when he opened the

,

she said

THE POTION COMPOUNDED 119

shadow-box, and have seen it again since. It is in
Chinese and I cannot speak it, but now I remember
it well, each syllable; and I will learn the art of
the pen and then I will make the likeness of one of
those syllables upon parchment. There are three
syllables, but I will make the likeness of only one
at first, and with it I shall write words of my own
imagining, making them square and outlandish. And
I shall say to him: ‘Master, I was given this writing
by a heathen man that I met. I pray you read it for
mes!”

She listened at first, but when he spoke of writ-
ing words of his own imagining she turned again to
her melancholy.

“But hearken,” he said, and his eagerness gained
her attention, “Oft as he reads he mutters, and if
the room be dark and the script small then he will
mutter surely, and I hear the words that he mut-
ters. Now when all the script is strange to him
but one word, he will surely mutter that one and
then stop and ponder; and I shall hear that word
and remember. And then some days must go by, and
many days; and then one day I will bring him an-
other script, with the second syllable, and long after-
wards the third, and then I shall have the spell.”

She was listening now with a look on her face
that seemed to be like hope; but hope had been
absent from her face so long that if it now shone
in her eyes its image there was too faint for Ramon
Alonzo to be quite sure what it was. And after a
while she said: “Learn not the art of the pen from

120 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

him. There are good men that can teach chat art,
and not only he.”

“Why?” said Ramon Alonzo.

“Because,” she said, “if he deems that you have
not the art he will not suspect you wrote it.”

And then Ramon Alonzo knew that she hoped,
for she had taken a part in his plan. And for a long
while they talked of it. And all the while the faint
hope of the charwoman grew, and her eyes shone
now with a bright unwonted light in the haggard
withered face.

One thing she warned him which Ramon Alonzo
remembered, and that was to give up his false
shadow to the magician before he opened the
shadow-box, if ever he should be able to open it.
For the magician could cut off the false shadow,
having the necessary tools; but if this were not done
he would never be able to rid himself of it and would
always have two shadows, a true and a false. Thus
they plotted together; but Ramon Alonzo thought
nothing of his own shadow, planning only to rescue
hers, with his thoughts as they roved to the future
fixed on nothing but the picture of her old face
lit up by some feeble smile from a wan happiness
when she should have her old shadow again.

And now the morning was wearing on to the
hour when the magician would be astir, and Ramon
Alonzo desired to be gone before he appeared. For
he had acquired a lore in his youth which taught
him ever to avoid the aged when merry plans were
afoot; for the aged would come with their wisdom

THE POTION COMPOUNDED n21

and slowness of thought, and other plans would be
made, and there would be, at least, delay. So he
was impatient to go, and yet he dallied, reluctant
that any word should be the last, reluctant to leave
the new plan that they had made between them,
and reluctant to leave the old woman, who some-
how held his sympathy in such a way as he had not
been taught that it could be held by the aged.

Then they spoke of trifles as folk often do that
are at the moment of parting. He told of the imps
in the wood, that he had never seen, but whose feet
he had heard following. And she told him how to
see an imp, which was easy. For a man can see
three sides of a tree, and whatever comes the imp
will go to the fourth side; and there he will wait till
he is sure of being able to peep round without being
seen. “But throw your hat past the right side of
the tree,” she said, “and he will clamber round at
once on to the left side, and you will see the imp.”

Of such trifles they spoke. But fearing now to
see at any moment the dark form of the Master, or
to hear his stride along the booming corridors,
Ramon Alonzo made his farewells ; and one last mes-
sage of good cheer he gave her before striding
away with his cloak and his sword to the wood.

“When I have rescued your shadow,” he said,
“I will take you away from this house, and you shall
be charwoman at my father’s tower, and the work
will be light there and you may do it slowly, and
none shall molest you and you may rest when you
will and you shall have long to sleep.”

122 THE CHARWOMAN'’S SHADOW

Some glance of gratitude he looked for; but a
smile so strange lit her face and haunted her eyes,
that he went from the sombre house and into the
wood, and all the way to the open lands, still won-
dering.

CHAPTER XIV
THE FOLK OF ARAGONA STRIKE FOR THE FAITH

HEN Ramon Alonzo came out of the wood
he saw that the shadows were already short-
ening. He saw then that he had delayed too long
with the charwoman, and should have started while
shadows were long, and so gone through the dark of
the wood while his own was unnatural, and come to
frequented ways while it was as other men’s. And
he felt ashamed of his dalliance. For had he been
delayed by some radiant girl her beauty would have
so dazzled him that he could not have seen his
folly; but to come under the fascination of a most
aged charwoman seemed a thing so unworthy of his
knightly ambitions that he hung his head as he
thought of it, and yet all the while remained true to
his chivalrous plan to rescue her poor old shadow.
A little way he went; but, soon seeing men in
the distance in the fields, he thought it better not to
go beyond the last of the oaks that stood outside
the wood, until other men’s shadows should be a
little longer, and so avoid the ill-informed foolish
pother that folk seemed to make when all shadows
were not exactly evenly matched. Already he had
come to feel a vigorous scorn for the absurd im-

123

/

124 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

portance that others attached to shadows. For
youth argues rapidly, and—in a way—clearly, from
whatever premises it has, not often tarrying to en-
quire if more premises be needed. These were some
of the premises from which Ramon Alonzo argued:
a shadow is of no possible value to anyone, nor
does anyone ever suppose that it is; and, if it were,
the poor old woman that lost hers should have been
pitied; and he himself actually possessed a shadow,
and, if it were too short, their own shadows had all
been just as short an hour or two ago; and the same
folk that called it too short in the evening would
doubtless call it too long at noon. There is indeed
a great deal of futility amongst the human race
which we do not commonly see, for it all forms part
of our illusion; but let a man be much annoyed by
something that others do, so that he is separated
from them and has to leave them, and looks back at
what they are doing, and he will see at once all man-
ner of whimsical absurdities that he had not noticed
before; and Ramon Alonzo in the shade of his oak,
waiting for the noon to go by, grew very contemp-
tuous of the attitude that the world took up towards
shadows,

Nobody passed him and, if any saw him far off,
they only saw him keeping a most honoured observ-
ance of Spain, which is the siesta, or pause for the
heat of the day to go by.

And, when shadows had grown again, he left
the shade that had sheltered him against the heat
of the sun and the persecution of men and walked

THE FOLK STRIKE 125

boldly down the road, protected by as good a shadow
as was to be found in attendance on any man. He
had little thought to set such store by so light a
protection, or to consider at all the attendance of a
thing so slight and vain; but he was learning now the
value that the world attached to trifles, and that
there were some the neglect of which had no more
toleration than sacrilege.

And then, before he had come to Aragona, a
glance at the landscape showed that the hour had
come when shadows were longer than material
things. It was not by any measurement that he saw
this, but by a certain eerie look that there is over
all things when shadows have become greater than
their masters, so that shadowy things seem to in-
fluence earthly affairs instead of good solid matter.
This eerie hour he had known of old, and often felt
the influence of it, yet never before had his conscious
thoughts noted it, or told him as they did now that
this was the turn of shadow-tide, when each shadow
surpassed the stature of its master; so much do
our own affairs sharpen our observation. Had he
gone on perhaps none would have noticed; but there
was growing fast in him the outcast’s feeling, and,
however much he scorned the importance folk at-
tached so vainly to shadows, he not only felt his de-
fect but intensely exaggerated it, until impulses
came to him to slink and to hide, and he began to
know the natural avoidances that are part of the
habits of the forsaken and hunted. Therefore he
went no nearer to Aragona than where he saw a

126 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

small azalea growing a little way ahead ; and there he
sat down, protected by its shadow, which was only
just enough to conceal his deficiency. If any noticed
him he pretended to be eating, though he had for-
gotten to bring any food with him. At times small
clouds passed over the face of the sun, but they did
not stay long enough to take him through Aragona,
so he stayed in the protection of that humble growth
that had what he lacked, and wished he had never
had to do with magic. Something was making the
evening pass very slowly, and making it very cold,
and Ramon Alonzo did not know it was hunger.
And at last the sun drew near to the horizon and
all the shadows stretched out dark and long; and
Ramon Alonzo, more than ever conscious of his own
wretched strip of grey darkness, felt amongst these
unbridled shadows much as he might have felt on
some gala evening had he gone to a glittering féte,
where men and women were dressed in all the silks
of festival, and had moved amongst them himself in’
tawdriest oldest cloth. And then the sun set and
his buoyant spirits arose and, feeling himself the
equal of any material thing, he left the humble pro-
tection of the azalea and strode on towards Aragona.
No sooner had he come to the fields and gardens
that lay about the village than idlers saw him and
stood up at once and called aloud to warn the vil-
lage folk, as though their idleness had been a per-
petual guard whose purpose was triumphantly ful-
filled. “The man with the bad shadow,” they all
cried out; and he saw that his story had been noised

THE FOLK STRIKE 127

about, and that this was become his name. Answer-
ing voices called from the little streets and out of
small high windows, and there was the noise of feet
running. And then some ran to the tower where
the ropes hung down from the belfry, to ring the
bells that they rang against magic or thunder, and
those mellow musical voices went over the fields to
protest against Ramon Alonzo. They seemed to
be flooding all the gloaming with memories, as they
carried to Ramon Alonzo there in his loneliness
vision on vision of times and occupations from which
he was now cut off and debarred by a shadow. He
felt a wistful love for their golden voices, calling
out to him from this land he had lost, where dwelt
the happy men that had not touched magic; but when
the bells rang on and on and on a fury came on him
at the narrow folly of the folk that made all this fuss
about a shadow, and he flung his arm impatiently to
his sword-hilt. But when he saw, amongst the
crowd that was hastening to gather against him,
women and even children, and the protestation of
the bells still filled the air with outcry, he perceived
that there was an ado that it was beyond his sword
to settle. So he turned back along the way he had
come; and soon his shape was dim on the darkening
hill-side to the eager crowd that watched and talked
in the village, and soon their excited voices reached
him no more, and he heard no sound but the bells
warning all those lands against him.

For a while he paced the hill-side in the chill, full
of all such thoughts as arise from hunger, and that

128 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

thrive in the cold and fatigue that hunger brings;
doubts, fears, and despairs. What was he himself,
he wondered, now that his shadow had left him?
Was he any longer a material thing? And he help-
lessly cast his mind over all known forms of matter.
Were any of them without shadows? Even water
and even clouds. And what of this sinister thing
with which he associated, the Magician’s piece of
gloom? How much was hea fellow conspirator with
it? How much was it damned?

And his thoughts turned thence to the dooms of
the Last Day. How much was a shadow necessary
to salvation? Would the blessed Saints care for so
light and insubstantial a thing? But at once came
the thought that they themselves had renounced ma-
terial things and were themselves immaterial and
spiritual, and might set more store by a shadow than
he could ever know,

And all the while as he walked on the darkening
hill-side doubts asked him questions and despairs
hinted replies, which might neither of them ever have
spoken at all had he thought to bring some food
with him in a satchel. And all the while the blue of
the sky grew deeper, and moths passed over the
grass, with a flight unlike the flight of whatever flies
by day, and little queer cries were heard that the
daylight knows not: and then, like a queen slipping
silently into her throne-room through a secret panel
of oak, bright over lingering twilight the first star
appeared.

It was the hour when Earth has most reverence,

THE FOLK STRIKE 129

the hour when her mystery reaches out and touches
the hearts of her children; at such a time if at all one
might guess her strange old story; such a time she
might choose at which to show herself, in the splen-
dour that decked her then, to passing comet or spirit,
or whatever stranger should travel across the paths
of the planets. Ramon Alonzo, cold and lonely while
star after star appeared, not only drew no happiness
from all that mellow glow, but saw in it a new
horror. For looking closely with downcast eyes on
the moss and grass of the hill he noticed now that
the piece of gloom that the magician had given him
was a little darker than the natural darkness of that
early starry hour; so that he alone, of all things in
the night, had a shadow creeping beside him. And
again he brooded bitterly, trying to guess the end of
it. Must he share the obvious doom of this false
shape? Must he lose salvation because he had lost
his shadow? And as he mournfully pondered the
night darkened, and soon was darker than that piece
of gloom. When Ramon Alonzo saw that it had
gone, and that he was for the moment like all other
men and things, shadowless in the night, he soon
forgot the future, and turned again towards the vil-
lage of Aragona, thinking to pass through its streets
like any other traveller.

When he reached the village it was full night and
all the stars were shining, not only those that had
stolen into sight, one by one, where no eye watched,
but the whole Milky Way. The bells long since had
ceased, and a hush held all the village as Ramon

130 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

Alonzo strode through. But it was a hush of whis-
perings, the strained hush of watchers. All the
upper windows were open; men were gathered in
darkened rooms. Women peered behind curtains.
Even in lofts there were watchers. And for all their
eagerness they did not see Ramon Alonzo till he
was well within the village. Perhaps they expected
some more stealthy approach than his honest, con-
fident stride; perhaps they whispered too earnestly
amongst themselves; most likely they thought that
not just at that moment would the event for which
they waited occur. But when one sharp angry cry
was heard from an upper window all the watchers
saw him at once. Then the hush broke in a tumble
of feet descending wooden stairs, and a clatter of
scabbards, and a noise of doors flung open, and sud-
den voices, and the sound of feet in the street.

“For the Faith,’ they cried; “for the Faith!
Where is he?”

Behind him Ramon Alonzo heard many voices;
before him he saw four men, one of whom carried
a lantern. A few paces more and he was half-way
through the village. And these few paces brought
him close to the four men. Behind him a confusion
in the voices showed that they were not certain where
he was. Ahead of him there seemed no more than
these four. He went quickly up to them; and they
no less eagerly, and even gladly, hastened towards
him. His sword was out, and theirs.

“For the Faith!” they cried.

“One at a time, sefiors,” said Ramon Alonzo with

THE FOLK STRIKE 131

a sweep of his hat; for they were all coming on him
together. And at these words one hung back a little,
but another turned to him.

“It is for the Faith,” he said. Then they all came
on together, three upon Ramon Alonzo while the
fourth stood beside them with drawn sword, holding
the lantern high.

“That for St. Michael!” cried the first to cross
with Ramon Alonzo. But the stroke was well par-
ried.

“That for all archangels!” the same swordsman
cried, making another blow at Ramon Alonzo. But
he had taken off his cloak and folded it on his left
arm, and the cloak took that blow. With his sword
he parried a thrust from one of the others.

But one man cannot fight against three for long;
and the stationary lantern and the clear sound of steel
had told the crowd in the street where the young man
was, the man with the bad shadow, as they called
him, and they were pouring that way. Ramon
Alonzo therefore pushed past his antagonist, muffling
his sword’s point with his cloak and so passing him
that he was for a moment between himself and the
other two swordsmen. Then he passed round and
attacked the man with the lantern.

The four men had their plan, and it was evidently
planned that the man with the lantern should not join
in the attack but should light the others. This they
had probably long talked over and settled while they
waited for Ramon.Alonzo. And the man with the
lantern would surely have been the least skilful

132 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

swordsman. But that Ramon Alonzo should attack
him they none of them had considered.

As Ramon Alonzo passed round behind the backs
of the three, each of them turned and stood on
guard for a moment, for it is well known to be
dangerous to have an armed man behind you in the
dark. In that moment Ramon Alonzo launched him-
self upon the man with the lantern. There was no
more than a pass and a parry and then again a thrust.

“That for the mother of St. Anne,” said the man
with the lantern, aiming his last stroke. And then
Ramon Alonzo’s point entered his ribs.

The strange magical shadow spun weirdly about
as Ramon Alonzo grabbed the fallen lantern; and,
holding it with the arm that had the cloak, his own
eyes were protected by a fold of the cloth from the
light that somewhat dazzled the eyes of the three.
But it was not only the three; there were twenty or
thirty more pouring up the street only now a few
paces away. With a flourish of cloak and lantern in
their faces, and an always watchful sword-point, he
now disengaged from the three, and turned and ran
as the crowd came pouring up.

He had suddenly gained a few paces, but the light
of a lantern is easy to follow at night; and, keeping
to the road, he was soon approached by the swiftest
of the runners. For a while they raced, but when
Ramon Alonzo saw that in the end he would be
overtaken he stopped and put down the lantern in
the road. The other came up, not one of those three
with whom he had already crossed swords. Ramon

THE FOLK STRIKE 133

Alonzo flung his whole cloak at his head, and picked
up the lantern and ran on. Time enough to fight
him later, he thought, if he overtook him again. But
the cloak had completely covered the man’s head and
his sword had gone through it, and the crowd came
up with him before he was able to start after the
lantern again. And Ramon Alonzo at once ran
lighter without his cloak, and sped on with a cer-
tain pleasure such as comes to athletes in youth. The
crowd now cursed the lantern that they saw bob-
bing on before them, confusing it with lights of
hellish origin, and forgetful or ignorant that it was
the respectable lantern of a good kitchen-grocer of
their own village.

Ramon Alonzo they abjured to stop, calling him
by the names of certain famous devils; but he no
more heeded them than would these devils have done.
Only he noticed that, though they fought or pursued,
as their cries indicated, for the Faith, for St.
Michael, for St. Joseph, for St. Judas not Iscariot,
for all the Saints, for the King, they none of them
cried “for a Shadow.” And yet that was all that
the fuss was about, he reflected irritably. There are
always two views, even over a trifle.

He had been gaining a little ever since he dropped
his cloak; but now one runner seemed to be ahead of
the crowd again. He heard his feet above the sound
of their shouts and their running. On his left ran a
little lane among deep hedges, joining the wider road.
And now was come the time to put the lantern to the
purpose for which he carried it. He ran down the

134 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

lane till he found a gap in the hedge on his right,
then he put the lantern high up on the hedge on his
left and stuck it there still alight. He then crawled
through the gap on his right and ran softly towards
the road he had left, over a corner of a wild field.

They soon came to the lantern. They did not
hear him run softly over the field, but gathered
round the lantern, and pulled it down; and, finding
he was not there, they pursued in every direction,
some of them going across the field to the road and
following Ramon Alonzo. But they had wasted too
many moments and could no longer hear him run-
ning. Following that lantern had been too easy, and
now that it guided them no longer they did not im-
mediately use their wits or their ears.

For some while Ramon Alonzo heard voices be-
hind him; then they dropped off and mingled with
the far noises of night. He ran leisurely on. And
presently the various parties turned back from their
roads and lanes and gathered again in the village,
and there was talk till a late hour of what they had
done for the Faith. And many a guess there was
of whence he had come, and many of where he had
gone; and many a tale there was of the same thing
differently seen, and these tales were checked by the
wisdom of elder men who had not been there but
could make some shrewd guesses. And when all was
compared it was seen there had been more magic
than one could easily credit if it had not actually
happened. And a wise old man who had not spoken
as yet was seen to be shaking his head; and when all

THE FOLK STRIKE 135

were listening he spoke: “Well, it is gone,” he said,
“The Saints be praised.”

“Aye, it is gone,” said they all.

So they went to bed.

CHAPTER XV

RAMON ALONZO TALKS OF TECHNIQUE AND MUDDLES
HIS FATHER

Rees ALONZO ran on in the night, then

dropped to a walk, and soon he no more than
sauntered along the road, whose greyness before
him seemed the only light on earth. Above him the
whiteness of the Milky Way seemed to suggest other
roads, and his thoughts rambled awhile through the
mazes of this idea until they were quite lost in it,
then they came back bitterly to earth. The char-
woman had been right! All this ridiculous fuss
about a trifle, and not a trifle that they even set any
store by themselves; for who prizes his shadow, who
compares it with that of others, who shows it, who
boasts of it? A trifle that they knew to be a trifle,
the least useful thing on earth; a thing that nobody
sold in the meanest shop and that nobody would i
they could, and that nobody would buy, a thing with-
out even a sentimental value, soundless and weight-
less and useless. Far more than this Ramon Alonzo
thought, and believed he had definitely proved, to the
detriment of shadows. No doubt he exaggerated a
shadow’s worthlessness. And yet the folk of that

136

RAMON TALKS OF TECHNIQUE 137

village that had turned out sword in hand had by
their action exaggerated the other side of the argu-
ment, and extremes are made by extremes. Nor was
Ramon Alonzo in any way checked in his furious ex-
posure of shadows by any wistful yearning that he
had often felt for his own since the day that he lost
it, and was often to feel again. Logic indeed had
been flouted upon either side in this business, and it
is for just such situations as these that swords are
made. Ramon Alonzo had used his well, and he
wiped it now on a handful of leaves and returned it
to the scabbard.

How late it was he did not know, but it was full
time for sleep, so he lay down by the road; but with-
out his cloak he found it too cold, even in the sum-
mer night, so he rose and sauntered on. On the way
he met a stream and drank from it, and noticed the
vivifying effect of water, perhaps for the first time.

Neither his lonely walk nor his lonely thoughts
are worth recording, until a faint colour from the
coming dawn began to brighten his journey, and the
approach of another day turned his thoughts to the
future, and a memory that he had the vial that his
sister needed came to brighten his mind.

And then the false shadow appeared again on
the ground, scarce noticeable had he not chanced to
see it the evening before at a time when his eyes
were downcast, less noticeable than the faintest of
earthly shadows ,that will sometimes fall from a
small unsuspected light, but enough to warn Ramon
Alonzo that he must hide and slink and follow the

138 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

ways of outlaws. Not far from him now was the
forest that sheltered his home, and above a dark edge
of it he could see a gable upon his father’s house be-
ginning to gleam in the morning. Yet not now could
he seek his home: he must wait till the long shadows
that were about to roam the fields had shrunk to a
length that was somewhat less than man’s. He
hastened on to reach the nearest part of the forest be-
fore the sunrise should expose his deficiency to
whomever might be abroad in the clear morning.
So he left the road and took his way to the forest.
The sun rose before he gained the shade of the
trees, but no man was yet abroad, and only a dog
from a sleeping cottager’s house saw the man with
the short shadow hurrying over the grass upon
which no other shadow was less than its master.
Among shadows more enormous than the sound solid
rocks the dog came up with him, its suspicions well
aroused, probably by the queer unearthly appearance
that the short shadow gave Ramon Alonzo rather
than by any exact observation that his shadow was
not the right length; but this we cannot know, for
neither the wisdom of dogs nor the wisdom of men
is as yet entirely understood by the other, though
great advances have already been made: one has
only to mention such names as Arnold Wilkinton,
Sir Murray Jenkins, Rover, Fido, and Towser.
The dog followed at first sniffing; then he came
up close and took one long sniff at Ramon Alonzo’s
left leg, and stopped and sat down satisfied. Pres-
ently he thought to bark, and gave four or five short

RAMON TALKS OF TECHNIQUE 139

barks as a matter of duty; but that human scent
that he got had been enough, and he showed none of
that fury of suspicion and anger that men had shown
in the village of Aragona. Ramon Alonzo was
enormously heartened by this, for he saw that what-
ever magic there had been, and although he was able
to cast no natural shadow, yet his body was still
human: he trusted the dog for that. And then the
dog, feeling that he had not perhaps quite given
warning enough against this stranger that strolled
by his master’s house so early, barked three or four
times again. But this in no way checked Ramon
Alonzo’s newly found cheerfulness; for the dog
might have howled. The young man went on and
came to the shade of the forest, while the dog got up
and walked slowly back to his barrel, whence he had
first been attracted by the curiously spiritual figure
that Ramon Alonzo cut in the landscape at that hour,
which had not seemed at first sight satisfactory.
Through the forest Ramon Alonzo hastened
towards his home; and yet haste was of no use
to him, for he came as near to the garden’s edge
as it was safe to come long before he dared show
himself. Hungry, though watching the win-
dows of his own home, in hiding even from his
own parents and sister, he lay on some moss in
the forest near the end of the white balustrade,
waiting for the hour in which all human shadows
would be a little bit shorter than men. And as
he waited he saw Mirandola coming into the
garden: he saw her walk by paths and shrubs

140 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

that they both knew so well, and past small
lawns on which they had played, as it seemed to
him, almost for ever. He longed to call to her
to come to the forest; and yet he would not,
for he knew not what to say, and would not let
her know the price he had paid to obtain the vial
she needed. And he durst not come to her, so he
stayed where he was, and the slow shadows short-
ened.

Not enough light reached him in the forest by
which to judge the length of other shadows, so
he tried to watch the length of Mirandola’s, still
walking in the garden. But when Mirandola
came to the end of the garden that was nearest
the edge of the forest he could not raise his head
to look without causing dried things in the
thicket to crackle, so that she might have heard
him; and when she turned back in her walk he
was soon unable to see her shadow clearly, even
when he stood up. So he watched a small
statue that there was on the lawn, in marble, of
a nymph, such as haunted the brake no longer,
as men were beginning to say; and he saw its
shadow dwindle. And when the time was very
nearly come that the shadows of all things else
would be as his, and already the difference was
not to be easily noticed, Ramon Alonzo walked
from the wood. Mirandola saw him at once com-
ing over the open between the balustrade and the
dark of the forest, and ran down one of the paths
of the garden towards him. But all things are not

RAMON TALKS OF TECHNIQUE 141

shaped towards perfect moments; and, as they ran
to meet, their father and mother appeared, coming
towards that part of the garden.

“T have the potion,” said Ramon Alonzo.

And without a word Mirandola took the vial,
and secreted it. So swiftly passed her hand
from his to her dress that he scarcely saw her
take it; and looked to her face, where all human
acts are recorded, to see her recognition of his
gift, but there was nothing there to show that she
had just received anything. Then she smiled in
her beauty and turned round to her parents. “Ra-
mon Alonzo is home,” she said.

Then there were greetings, and questions to
Ramon Alonzo, which he did not need to answer,
for there were so many that he could not have
answered one without interrupting the next. And
when there began to be fewer, and the time was
come for answers, he was able to choose the ques-
tions to which answers were easiest made. And he
thought that Mirandola sometimes helped him when
difficult questions were asked of the making of gold:
certainly her own questions were sometimes frivol-
ous, though whether they came of her frivolity or her
wisdom he was not quite sure.

His mother asked him: “Is magic difficult ?”

His father said: “Have you as yet made much
gold?”

And Mirandola asked: “Can you bring up a
rabbit from under an empty sombrero?”

But there were too many questions for record,

142 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

and most of them were but a form of affectionate
greeting and did not look for answers.

Soon, however, the Lord of the Tower and Rocky
Forest sought to detach his son from the rest of
the little group in order to talk with him precisely
upon the matter of business. And this he achieved,
though not easily, because of Mirandola. And even
then Mirandola chanced within hearing, so that at
last he had to say to her: “Mirandola, we speak of
business.”

And to definite questions of the making of
gold Ramon Alonzo found it difficult to reply
now that his sister was no longer nigh to help
him. He trusted her bright perceptions so
much that he well believed the love-potion she
had sought would better avail her than the gold
that their father demanded, but he could not
reveal her secret, and so found it difficult, with-
out a sound training in business, to give exact
accounts’ of gold that was not actually in exist-
ence. Chiefly he sheltered behind the technique
of magic, withholding no information from his
father on the matter of transmutation, on the
contrary giving him much, yet shrewdly per-
ceiving that these learned technicalities confused
the matter in hand, and led as surely away from
it as the paths in a maze that run in the right
direction soon lead their followers wrong. For
some while this talk continued, and though
Ramon Alofizo had no skill to write a prospectus
he none the less evaded the absence of gold and

RAMON TALKS OF TECHNIQUE 143

protected his sister’s secret. And as they spoke
they drew toward the house, and it was not long
before they entered the little banquet-chamber.
And there, while Ramon Alonzo ate to his
heart’s content, the Lord of the Tower told him
of Gulvarez. “Somewhat a greedy man, I fear,”
he explained. “And one that will bargain long and
subtly in the matter of Mirandola’s dowry, for which
reason the gold is urgent.”

Ramon Alonzo said nothing, thinking of the gross
man whom he had once seen and of whom he had
often heard.

“Yet if we refuse to close with him,” continued
his father, “whom shall we find in these parts for
Mirandola? Will one come from the forest? No.
And we are not such as can go to Madrid. The
worst of Gulvarez’s demands will cost us less than
that.”

And he laid his hand thoughtfully on the empty
silver box that he now kept in the room with him,
into which they had come from the scene of Ramon
Alonzo’s repast, the room where his boar-spears
hung.

“Could we not wait awhile?” said Ramon Alonzo.

“No, no,” said his father smiling and shaking his
head. “It is too easy to wait awhile in youth. It
is thus that the greatest opportunities pass. Even
as you wait youth passes. Ah well, well.”

No more said Ramon Alonzo; and his father
fell to contemplating the future silently and with
quiet content; and from this, the day being warm,

?

144 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

he grew somewhat drowsy and scarcely noticed his
son, who thereupon went back again to the garden
while the state of the shadows allowed him to walk
abroad without yet attracting notice.

There he spoke some while with his mother, un-
able to get away to Mirandola; and all the while
the shadows were wasting, And at last his mother
turned to the cool of the house and he made hasty
farewells, pleading the urgency of work, promising
to return soon, and leaving her before he had quite
explained why he had come; while she warned him
not to set too much store by magic, beyond what
would be required to please his father. Then he
went to Mirandola in another part of the garden.
And the shadows grew shorter and shorter.

As he spoke with Mirandola he hastened with
her to the edge of the forest to gain the protection
of the oaks, whose mighty shadows he had come
to envy. And as they went he said to her: “Our
father has arranged that you marry Señor Gulvarez.”

“He hath,” she said.

“Mirandola,” he said, “is he not a trifle gross,
Señor Gulvarez? Might he not, though pleasing
at first, grow however slightly tedious when he grew
older, and become, though never irksome, yet of less
charm, less elegance, as the years went by?”

But Mirandola broke into soft peals of laugh-
ter, which long continued, until they said farewell,
and Ramon Alonzo walked alone through the forest.

CHAPTER XVI
THE WORK OF FATHER JOSEPH

IRANDOLA came back from the edge of the
forest wondering, over wild heath to the
garden. It had been her wont to know what her
brother did, and even what he thought. But now
he had some thought that she did not know, and it
was at this that she wondered. She considered all
the events that she thought might touch her brother ;
love first of all; and awhile she thought this was his
motive, and then she thought it was something
else. But she had not spoken with him long enough
to guess that he went away so soon and so fast
through the forest, with a packet of meat in his
satchel, because he had lost what all material things
have in attendance upon them whenever they face
the light, and that he durst not show while other
shadows were shorter his miserable strip of five
feet of gloom. She had indeed heard tales of men
who had sold their shadows, and knew that her
brother had daily dealings with magic, but she had
not guessed the fee that the Master took. She
had told him not to bring gold. For what purpose

145

146 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

then was his haste? Wondering, she returned to
the garden.

Who could tell her? Only one. One only, amongst
the few Mirandola knew, was able to work out such
puzzles, and that was the good Father Joseph.
And just as she thought of him she saw his plump
shape coming smiling across the garden. It was
by a path through the garden he was wont to come
from his house whenever he came to see the Lord of
the Tower; and he came now to help make ready for
that event, now near at hand, of which all the
neighbourhood talked, the visit of the serene and
glorious hidalgo, the Duke of Shadow Valley.

And before he entered the house to take part
in the preparations upon which the Lord of the
Tower had long been occupied, except for the brief
interruption of Ramon Alonzo’s visit, Mirandola
greeted him and turned him aside to another part
of the garden, hoping to find from him the clue of
her brother’s sudden departure. That he would
discern it she had no doubt, that he might tell her
she hoped; for these two were good friends, almost
one might say comrades in spiritual things. Miran-
dola’s confessions were the most complete of any
that dwelt at the Tower, perhaps the most complete
the good father heard, and indeed they were a joy
to him. Often from these confessions he gathered
such knowledge as it was right that he should have
of the little earthly events that befell in that neigh-
bourhood, which might not otherwise have come
his way. He came much to rely on them; and so it

THE WORK OF FATHER JOSEPH 147

was that he and Mirandola had a certain comrade-
ship in the wars that the just wage ever against
sin.

“My brother came to-day,’ she said as they
walked.

“He did?” said Father Joseph.

“But he only stayed a short space and then went
away.”

“Oh. That is sad,” said Father Joseph.

“He spoke with all of us and ate a dinner, and
then he left at once.”

“T trust he ate well,” said the good man.

“Very well,’ answered Mirandola.

“Very well?” repeated Father Joseph.

“Yes, He ate a large dinner.”

“More than usual with him?”

es,

“Ah,” said the good man, “then he had travelled
fast.”

“I suppose so,” said Mirandola.

“For what purpose did he come?” asked Father
Joseph.

Mirandola looked at him and smiled gently. “He
came to see us,” she said.

But Father Joseph had seen from that smile and
from her eyes, before she spoke, that he would not
get an answer to that question.

“Very right. Very proper,” he said.

“But he would not stay,” she said.

“Ah. He should have stayed awhile,” said Father
Joseph.

148 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

“He went away very fast through the forest,” she
said.

“By what road did he come?” he asked.

“Through the forest,” she said.

“Ah. Hiding,” said Father Joseph.

Not only was Father Joseph ready at all times
with help for those that sought it, but one good
turn deserved another, and he joyously used his wits
for Mirandola. He argued thus with himself: a
man hides either from enemies or from all. A man
sometimes hid from the law; but the law came sel-
dom to these parts, and in summer never, for la
Garda slept much in the heat. From enemies then
or from all. Now in all the confessions he had
heard from men that had enemies he had noticed
that none went back from their journeys by the same
way by which they had come, as Ramon Alonzo had
done. Did he then hide from all, except from his
family? That would argue some change in him
that he wished to conceal, or even in his clothing,
for he had known young men as sensitive about
their mere clothes as about the very form God had
made, or—alas—about even the safety of their souls.
But what change then? It would not have escaped
the eyes of Mirandola.

“T trust he was well,” he said.

“Yes,” she said.

“He looked as he ever looks?” he asked.

“Oh, yes.”

“Quite the same as ever. Yes, of course. Ard
he was dressed the same?”

THE WORK OF FATHER JOSEPH 149

“Yes,” she said. ‘‘All but his cloak.”

“Ah, his cloak was different,” said Father Joseph.

“Tt was not there,” she said.

“No,” he said, and thought awhile. And now
his thoughts ran deeper and stranger, touching the
ways of magic, of which he knew much, but as an
enemy.

“My child,’ he said, and he took her hand and
patted it, lest his words should alarm her, “had he
a shadow?”

She gave a little gasp. “Yes, his shadow was
safe.”

That was as near as Father Joseph came with his
guesses. He thought much more but strayed further
away from the truth, and then he decided that more
facts were needed, small things observed, short
phrases overheard, which he knew so well how to
weave; and determined to bide his time.

“That is all now,” he said to soothe her, lest she
should fear another question probing such dreadful
things. “We shall find why he left.”

They turned back then to the house to take part
in the preparations.

There Father Joseph found all the old repose gone.
Comfortable chairs that stood in quiet corners had
been moved, chairs that his body loved when a little
wearied perhaps by spiritual work; and the corners
that had seemed so quiet now glared with a harsh
light with all their old cobwebs gone, and stared with
a strange emptiness because their chairs had been
taken away to the banquet-hall. The quiet old boar-

150 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

spears, that had seemed a very part of lost years, no
longer rested soberly on the wall, but flashed and
sparkled uneasily, for they had been newly polished
and seemed to have become all at once a part of
the work-a-day present, and to have lost with their
rust all manner of moods and memories that they
used to whisper faintly to Father Joseph whenever
he saw them there. And, though the moods that
the dimness and rust of the old things brought him
were always edged with sadness,. yet he gently
lamented them now. But news had just come that
the morrow was the day when Gulvarez would bring
the Duke of Shadow Valley, with four chiefs of the
Duke’s bowmen and his own two men-at-arms. So
Father Joseph was soon moving chairs with the
rest; and, though somewhat lethargic of body, yet
his great weight moved the chairs as the torrents
swollen with snow move the small boulders. And by
the middle of the afternoon nothing seemed left of
that mysterious harmony that is the essence of any
home: had Penates been set up there as in Roman
days they would not have recognized the rooms that
they guarded. But before the sun had set a sudden
change came over the confusion, and there was a
new orderliness; and a tidiness that the Lord of the
Tower had quite despaired to see was all at once
around him. And Peter, who had come in from
the garden to help, attributed this to the aid of all
the Saints, and in particular to the aid of that fisher-
man from whom he had his name; but, likely as not,
it was but the result of mere steady work. Then

THE WORK OF FATHER JOSEPH 151

Father Joseph sank into one of the chairs and
rested.

And then the Lord of the Tower and his lady
began to discuss the reception of the Duke; where
they should meet him, who should go with them, and
the hundred little points that make an occasion. And
here a nimble power came to their aid from where
the large man in his chair rested heavily, for the
mind of Father Joseph was bright and agile, and
the making of plans never tired it as pushing chairs
tired his body. He it was that suggested that the
two maids from the dairy and the girl that minded
the house should go with Mirandola and strew the
road with flowers. And he planned, or they planned
under his encouragement, that Peter and three men
from the stables should take each a boar-spear and
stand two each side of the door like men-at-arms.
And it was Father Joseph’s thought that another
man should ride down the road till he saw the Duke
arriving, and then spur back and tell them so that
all should be ready. And the chamber that the Duke
should have was prepared, and a room appointed by
the Lady of the Tower for each of his four bowmen,
and last of all they thought of Gulvarez. Lo, it was
found that there was not room for him. But they
thought of a long dark loft there was over the stables,
where the sacks of corn were kept, longer than any
room and nearly as warm: this they set apart for
Gulvarez and his two men-at-arms.

CHAPTER XVII
THE THREE FAIR FIELDS

HE day dawned splendidly, and air and fields
glittered all the morning with sunlight, which
welled up over the world and was only stopped by
the forest. Her mother called Mirandola to the room
in which the draughts and the tapestries upheld their
age-old antagonisms, and spoke with her of Gul-
varez. She spoke awhile of his merits, and often
paused, for it was her intention to answer her daugh-
ter’s objections, but Mirandola made no objections
at all. It was of these objections that the Lady of
the Tower had been better prepared to speak than
of such merits as might be attributed to Gulvarez,
and when there were no objections to answer, her
pauses grew longer and longer; and soon she said
no more at all, but sat and looked at her daughter.
And that was a sight for which many would gladly
have travelled far; yet the Lady of the Tower was
puzzled as she looked, seeing no doubts in her
daughter’s face, no hesitations, only a quiet acquies-
cence, and beyond that the trace of a smile that she
could not fathom.
Then Mirandola went from her mother’s room,

152

THE THREE FAIR FIELDS 153

back to her own, with a quick glance as she went,
through every window she passed that looked to the
road. And she took the vial that she had had from
her brother from the place in which she had hidden
it overnight, and once more placed it secretly in her
dress. And as she passed through a corridor, leav-
ing her room, she saw from a sunlit window the
horseman they all awaited hurrying home.

At once there was a stir of feet in the Tower.
The four men with the boar-spears ran to the door;
and Father Joseph came out and blessed their
gathering, and showed them where to stand and how
to hold the spears; and all the while a certain flash
in his eye showed them that blessing was not his
only work. And the three maids ran to their
baskets, that were all full of wild flowers gathered
by ‘them in the dew; and Mirandola came with them
carrying a basket of rose-petals. As the maidens
came through the door Father Joseph blessed the
baskets. Then they went slowly up the road all
four, strewing the way with flowers.

Once more Father Joseph had seen in Mirandola’s
face a look of wonder and awe and joy, as though
something had come to her that was new and strange.
What should it be but love? And yet he deemed
that it was something else, but knew not what it was.
It was that she carried in the vial that her brother
brought her a magical thing, the first she had ever
owned.

As Father Joseph mused and failed to find an
answer, there began to arrive the folk from neigh-

154 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

bouring cots, coming across the fields: they gathered
a little way off from the door and began to talk of
Gulvarez. They were a folk much as other folk
are, and yet they were as it were maimed of half
their neighbourhood, for none dwelt in the forest.
It may be because of this they gossipped more
eagerly of what neighbours they had: it may be that
all gossip everywhere runs to its limit, and is no-
where more or less. They spoke of Gulvarez, who
was so strangely honoured; and some said that the
only cause of the visit was that his castle chanced to
stand by the Duke’s journey, while others said nay,
arguing that in his youth there must have been
some sprightly quality that Gulvarez had had, some
excellence of mind or limb, for the sake of which
the Duke remembered him now. How else they
said would this exquisite hidalgo, the mirror of all
that followed the chase whether of wolf, stag, or
boar, whose mind was brightly stored with the mer-
riest songs of the happiest age Spain knew, whose
form, when mounted on one of his own surpass-
ing horses, was the form of a young centaur, how
else would he tolerate the gross Gulvarez? Thus
merrily flew the gossip, passing backward and for-
ward lightly from mouth to mouth.

And suddenly, where a hump of the road appeared
white against the blue sky, all saw two horsemen.
At once Father Joseph called sharply to the impro-
vised men-at-arms in a voice unlike the one where-
with he was wont to bless. They stiffened under it
and became more like the guard they were meant

THE THREE FAIR FIELDS 155

to be. The Lord of the Tower and his lady came
out and stood before their door. The girls went on
strewing flowers. And then was seen the velvet
cloak and cap of the Duke, and the great plume, and
the clear thin face, and his peerless chestnut horse
aglow in the sun, and the plump figure and coarse
whiskers of Gulvarez. These two were seen and
recognized by all before one of the chiefs of the
bowmen had yet been discerned. But two of these
were nearer to the Tower than anybody knew; they
slipped quietly from bush to bush and went care-
fully over horizons; two-were far before the Duke
and two close behind him: it was the way of the
bowmen. And then, a little way behind the riders,
straggled Gulvarez’s two men-at-arms. At first they
had marched in front, but the horses of the Duke
and Gulvarez ambled rather than walked, and the
two men-at-arms in their green plush and cuirasses,
with the heat of the sun on the iron helmets they
wore, soon fell a little behind. And now a bow-
man coming into sight hailed the group of gazers
near the door of the Tower; and they saw two of
those green bowmen that were so seldom seen, and
were so famous in fable and gossip: a little thrill
of wonder ran through the crowd. And presently
these two halted one on each side of the road, and
the Duke beside Gulvarez rode on between them and
came to where the girls were scattering flowers. As
soon as Gulvarez perceived Mirandola he bared
his head and smiled at her. It was a huge grimace.
Mirandola curtseyed to him; perhaps she smiled,

156 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

but it was not easy always to trace exactly every
expression that passed over her face. And then she
gravely continued strewing the rose-petals. Then
the Duke doffed his hat of dark blue velvet, and the
great plume, of a brighter blue, curved through the
summer air; and a glance of the Duke’s blue eyes
met a flash from the darker ones of Mirandola.

So passed the Duke and Gulvarez by Mirandola,
riding over the flowers and rose-petals, and not a
word was said. She had seen the eyes of the Duke
and the teeth of Gulvarez, and both men saw her
beauty; and so that instant passed. There came a
wavering cheer from the group of gazing neigh-
bours, a shot of anger from Father Joseph at some
clumsiness of the improvised guard, and the Lord
of the Tower and his lady were welcoming the Duke
as he dismounted on flowers. The neighbours, clus-
tering a little closer, appraised the Duke’s great
blue cloak; the jewels in his sword-hilt; his easy
seat upon that splendid horse, a certain indolence
redeemed by grace; the strong gait of his walk;
his face; his youth. Aye, they praised his youth,
as though any man could deserve credit for that;
but there was such a way with him, so pleasant a
grace, that they gave praise out of their thoughtless
hearts to everything that formed it. Then the horses
were led away by the men of Gulvarez, and host and
hostess and guests and Mirandola all passed into the
Tower.

The Lord of the Tower walked with the Duke, ex-
changing courtesies with him, his lady walked with

Th

THE THREE FAIR FIELDS "157

Gulvarez after them, and Mirandola followed be-
hind. And so they came through the hall and to-
wards the banquet-chamber, the host watching oppor-
tunity all the way; and not until they arrived where
the banquet was ready, and the maids that had
strewn the wild flowers had brought a silver bowl
to wash the hands of the Duke in scented water, did
the Lord of the Tower note and take his opportunity.
He went then to Gulvarez past Mirandola, speaking
low to her as he passed: “You shall see him pres-
ently,’ he said to her. ‘Yes, presently,” said the
Lady of the Tower, just hearing, or, if not, divining
what her lord had. said to his daughter. Both
thought she smiled obediently. And to Gulvarez
he said: “J have a pretty tusk that I would show
you before we banquet. A boar we took last sea-
son.”

Gulvarez well understood; for there had been a
bargain not in clear words, and without seals or
parchment, inscribed only upon those two men’s
understanding, that if he brought the Duke to visit
the Lord of the Tower the hand of Mirandola
should go to Gulvarez. And the time was come to
ratify it. Gladly then Gulvarez went away with his
host.

The bringing of the Duke had been none of Gon-
salvo’s bargain; he had come to a time of life when
events and occasions seemed but to disturb the
placidity of the years: it had been forced on him by
some whim of Mirandola. They came to the room
that the host most often used, in which there were

158 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

indeed boars’ tusks to show; but this both men
soon forgot.

“I have begun to think somewhat of late,” said
the Lord of the Tower, “concerning my daughter’s
future.”

“Indeed?” said Gulvarez.

“Somewhat,” replied his host.

No more instants passed than are needed for a
heavy mind to move; and then Gulvarez said: “I
take then this opportunity to express my ready will-
ingness to marry your daughter should this have
your approval. I trust that my castle may be an
abode not unworthy of one of your honoured
house.”

Gladly then the Lord of the Tower expressed
his approval in phrases not unfitted to that occa-
sion: many such phrases he uttered, fair, courteous,
and flowery, and still invented more, though the
arts of perfect speech were some years behind him
now; but he feared the next words of Gulvarez and
seemed to wish to delay them: perhaps he blindly
hoped to stave them off altogether.

“You will doubtless,” said Gulvarez, “give her a
dowry in keeping with the lustre of your name.”

“T shall indeed give her a dowry,” said Gonsalvo.
“Indeed the coffer that I set aside for this very
purpose is here.” And he laid his hand on the coffer
of oak and silver.

Gulvarez lifted the box a few inches with one
large hand, that could span the box and hold it, and
put it down again. The Lord of the Tower waited

THE THREE FAIR FIELDS 159

for him to speak, but Gulvarez said nothing. It
seemed to the owner of the box that it would have
been better had Gulvarez depreciated it than that he
should have thus weighed it in silence. And as
Gulvarez did not speak, his host continued.

“Tt is not as if I had not the coffer,” he said.
“Tt is here. I have set it aside. But it has not been
convenient to plenish it lately, or indeed as yet to
put anything in it at all.”

Still Gulvarez said nothing.

“The coffer is there,’ said Gonsalvo. Gulvarez
nodded.

“I had intended to fill it later,’ Gonsalvo con-
tinued, “if it should not be ready by the day of the
wedding; and one day to send it after Mirandola.”

Gulvarez was slowly and heavily shaking his
head. It seemed to the Lord of the Tower that
the stubbly growth of Gulvarez’s chestnut whiskers
almost shone as he shook his head, as the skin of a
horse when he is in good fettle.

“That would be too late?” said Gonsalvo.

“Somewhat,” replied Gulvarez.

Gonsalvo sighed. It must then be the three fair
fields, the pastures that lay at evening under the
shade of the forest. Perhaps two; but, no, Gul-
varez would ask for all three; and how could he
find a husband for Mirandola if he rejected Gul-
varez’s demands? Time was when he could have
done so, for he had known somewhat of the world
once. But the world had changed.

“My son, Ramon Alonzo,” he said, “is studying

160 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

to learn a livelihood, from which we have great
hopes.”

Never a word from Gulvarez helped him out;
merely a look of interest that compelled him to
go on. “In case he should be delayed,” he con-
tinued, “in assisting me to set aside the dowry that
I should wish to offer, my fields, my two fields,
should be given, until the money was sent.”

“Two fields?” said Gulvarez.

“Nay, nay,” said his host. “All three.”

“Ah,” said Gulvarez.

“So we shall be agreed,” said Gonsalvo.

“How much money, señor, are you pleased to give
on the day that it shall be convenient ?”

“Three hundred crowns of the Golden Age,” re-
plied the Lord of the Tower.

Gulvarez smiled and shook his head as though in
meditation.

“Five hundred,” said the Lord of the Tower.

“My respect for your illustrious house,” said Gul-
varez, “and my friendship for you, señor, that I
deem myself honoured to have, holds me silent.”

“Five hundred?” said the host with awe in his
voice, for it was a great sum.

Gulvarez waved something away with his hand
in the emptiness of the air. “Let us speak no more,
señor,” he said. “Our two hearts are agreed. It is
a great honour, and I am dumb before it.”

The Lord of the Tower sighed. He had known,
whenever he thought, that he should do no better
than this; and yet he had thought seldom, but

THE THREE FAIR FIELDS 161

hoped instead. Now it was over, and the three fields
gone. They never seemed fairer than now.
“Come,” he said, “we must return to Mirandola.”

So back they went, and jauntily walked Gulvarez,
though in no wise built or planned for walking
jauntily; but a spirit, whether of greed or love or
triumph, was exalted within him and was lifting
his steps. Once more, as they returned to the ban-
quet-chamber, his whiskers seemed to shine.

“Heigho,” thought the Lord of the Tower; ‘my
three sweet fields P”?

And there was Mirandola standing near her
mother, her left hand to her dress, about the girdle,
as though armed. And a look was on her face that
Father Joseph could not interpret, for he had come
into the room and was watching her. It was as
though she were about to enter a contest, and stood
proud before an armed and doughty antagonist.

Her mother and the Duke were already seated:
the maids were pouring wine into chalices from a
goblet that stood on a small table apart. The host
and Gulvarez seated themselves, and then Father
Joseph. Then the four chiefs of the bowmen came
in, and took seats lower down the table. Father
Joseph said grace. And still that look in the eyes of
Mirandola.

Then Mirandola went over to the maids that stood
at the table apart, and took from them one of. the
chalices and carried it to Gulvarez. Her father and
mother smiled at her mistake, for she should have
carried it to the Duke first; but their smiles broad-

162 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

ened into smiles of merry understanding as each
caught the other’s eye. Gulvarez would have strutted
had he been standing; had he been a peacock he
would have spread his tail-feathers and rattled them.
As it was, smirks and smiles expressed all this and
more. He was about to speak, but Mirandola left
him to fetch another chalice. So far as Father
Joseph was concerned it was unnecessary for Gul-
varez to say anything, for the priest knew every
thought that passed through his mind, but he had
not yet fathomed the mood of Mirandola.

Then, returning, she offered a chalice to the
Duke and went back and stood by her mother.

“Be seated, child, by Señor Gulvarez,” said her
mother.

But Mirandola still stood there awhile.

Gulvarez, though flustered with pride because
he had been given the wine by Mirandola first,
yet dared not drink it before his august friend drank.
Now they both drank together. Still Mirandola stood
beside her mother, between her and the Duke. A
moment she watched him with those eyes that never
saw less than keenly; then she turned from a glance
of the Duke’s blue eyes and answered her mother
tardily, as though just returned from far dreams.
“Yes, Mother,” she said, and went to the chair be-
side Sefior Gulvarez.

And now wine was carried by the maids to Father
Joseph and the four chiefs of the bowmen, where-
after they placed the goblet before their master.
And meats were set before all, and talk arose, and

THE THREE FAIR FIELDS 163

men’s hearts were warmed and they spoke of hunts
that had been and the taking of ancient boars. But
silent and with a strange look sat the Duke of
Shadow Valley.

CHAPTER XVIII
THE LOVE-POTION

HE look on the face of the Duke of Shadow
Valley was gradually growing stranger. The
outlines of his face were wearying; his quick glances
roamed no more, but turned to his plate listlessly ;
and he was breathing faster. The lady of the
Tower thought his cheeks grew a little paler under
the summer’s tan and yet she was not sure; when
a pallor swept over his face even to the lips sud-
denly. And all at once the Duke was very sick.

“Poison?” wondered Father Joseph. “Not the
Lord of the Tower,” he thought, “nor his lady, nor
Mirandola.” He looked quickly at the others, from
face to face. “No. What then?”

So far Father Joseph was right; but no one had
spoken and he needed more material to arrive at the
truth. Then the Duke was sick again. All the bow-
men stood up, irresolute.

Still no one spoke, unless the murmured anxieties
of the Lady of the Tower were speech.

Mirandola was silent as a little sphinx long left
by the earliest dynasty in a tomb of rock under sand.
Gulvarez was thinking to himself that he had ful-

164

THE LOVE-POTION 165

filled his part of the bargain, whatever happened to
the Duke when he arrived.

The Duke was sick again all in the silence.

Then suddenly there was speech. Suddenly there
was a tempest of words stinging and fierce and hot,
as when Africa rains sand through a silvery dark-
ness. It was the Duke speaking. His courtly
tongue, for whose grace he was known through
Spain, shot forth the words as the long whip hurls
the littie lash at its end.

The Lord of the Tower seemed to be growing
smaller as though shrivelling under the words;
Father Joseph’s eyes turned downward and he be-
came absorbed with humility. I will not repeat
the words.

Against his hostess the Duke said nothing, but his
speech so blasted Gulvarez for bringing him there
that she shuddered.

And the bowmen stood there ready, awaiting any
command from their master. He accused none of
poison: had he done so the hands of the bowmen
would have been on that one’s shoulders instantly:
but he deemed himself insulted either with meat long
dead, or with wine of so deadly a cheapness that
when the gipsies brew it out of no honest berries
they neither drink it themselves nor allow their chil-
dren near it. It was this insult that the serene
hidalgo felt more than the pains of the retchings.
And these were severe. His anger raged as though
from some magical source rather than any annoy-
ance caused by mere earthly cares. And he would

166 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

have still raged on till all but he had gone trembling
out from the chamber; but another bout of retch-
ings came upon him, and all pressed round him of-
fering ministrations. None of these would he have,
but only demanded of them the place of his bed-
chamber, desiring to rest awhile before he should
ride away from the cursed house. And this the
Lord of the Tower offered to show him, bent almost
to his knees by contrition at the neglect of his duty
as host and at the insult offered in his house to so
serene a hidalgo. But the Duke of Shadow Valley
would have none of him; and commanded his bow-
men instead to find the way to his bedchamber.
They therefore searched discreetly ; two going on be-
fore, the Duke following slowly, supported by the
shoulder of another, while the fourth marched
menacingly behind, to guard his master against
whatever new outrage might be meditated in
this suspicious house. Behind the fourth bow-
man, and as near as they durst, followed the
whole household, trying to tell the bowmen the
way to the Duke’s bedchamber, but not to a word
would one of the four chiefs hearken. Yet, how-
ever much they disdained the cries of the maids
and the ejaculations of Gonsalvo himself, these must
have been clues in their search; and soon they came
to a larger room than the others, which was clearly
prepared for a guest: into this they led the Duke,
who immediately banished them, to be alone on the
bed with his sickness and anger.

And in the afternoon the Duke’s sickness ceased,

Ni THE LOVE-POTION 167

so far as the bowmen could hear who guarded the
door, but his anger remained with him, and none
could bring him food, not even his own bowmen.

And the evening wore away and the Duke was
weak after his vomitings, yet none of his bow-
men durst enter to bring him food, for he roared
with anger whenever one touched his door, and any
mention of food increased his fury. And at night-
fall the Lord of the Tower himself brought food,
but when he came to the door the Duke swore an
oath to eat no food in that house nor even drink
water there. So he went disconsolately away.

In the anxiety that hung over all that house the
suit of Gulvarez made but little progress. He talked
to Mirandola, but there was a strange silence upon
her, and she had spoken seldom since the Duke had
drunk the wine that was in the chalice she brought
him. He spoke awhile with her mother but, what-
ever words were said, all ears were only alert for
any sounds that might tell or hint any changes in the
Duke’s health or his anger. And it grew late and
none durst go again to the Duke’s chamber with
food. So they went to their own bedchambers,
passing by the silent bowmen sternly guarding the
door; and when midnight came it brought no hush
to that house that was not lying heavily there al-
ready, for the whole house seemed to brood on the
enormity of the insult that it had offered to that
serene Magnifico the Duke of Shadow Valley.

But when morning came and still the Duke refused
food, and still lay weak on his bed and his anger

168 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

was strong as ever, and not even the bowmen durst
bring to him food or drink, then a new and darker
anxiety troubled the house. For if his weakness
forbade him to ride away and his anger would not
permit him to touch food or drink in that house,
might not the Duke die? Then the Lord of the
Tower told his lady that he would try once more;
and he went with a savoury dish and a flagon of
wine. But he returned so soon, so flushed and so
ill at ease, that the anxieties of all that saw him
were only increased. Of what had passed he said
nothing, beyond saying to his lady and often telling
over again, whether to others or muttering it low to
himself, that he knew that the Duke had never
meant what he said. Then Father Joseph, notic-
ing his distress, went without a word to the savoury
dish and the flagon and carried them from the room,
and soon his suave phrases were heard outside the
Duke’s door by such as listened round corners in
their anxiety; and none failed to hear the roar of
the Duke’s answers. So Father Joseph sighed and
returned to the Lord of the Tower, who, wishful to
conceal that he had heard what the Duke had
shouted, said to his guest: “How fared you?”

“The power of Holy Church is waning,” said
Father Joseph. “It is not what it was in the good
days.”

“Alas,” said Gonsalvo. And there were looks of
commiseration towards Father Joseph.

“It is because of all this sin,” Father Joseph
continued, “‘that there has been in the world of late.”

THE LOVE-POTION 169

And the commiserating looks changed all of a sud-
den, for they knew that Father Joseph knew all their
sins.

Then the Lady of the Tower took the flagon,
thinking that perchance the Duke might drink if no
word were said about food.

“He will not touch it. He will not touch it,” said
her lord as she left. Nor did he.

When the Lady of the Tower was gone Father
Joseph drew Mirandola a little apart.

“Tt is a strange and awful anger,’ he said to
her.

“Ts it?” she said, a little above a whisper, her
eyes much hidden under the dark lashes.

“Yes,” said he.

And no more said Mirandola till in a little while
he spoke again.

“What was it?” said Father Joseph.

“A love-potion,” said Mirandola.

Father Joseph thought for a moment, though
his face showed no more sign of thought than sur-
prise.

“I fear your brother mixed it ill,” he said.

“T fear so,” said Mirandola.

And, his curiosity satisfied, he had leisure to turn
to the things of his blessed calling. “Nor does Holy
Church commend these snatchings,” he added, “at
the good things of the world by means of the evil
Art and the brews of magic.”

“T have sinned,” said Mirandola.

Father Joseph waved a hand. It was a small sin

170 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

to bring to the notice of one of his years and call-
ing; for there were enough men and women in his
little parish for the study of every sin. Neverthe-
less he was thinking deeply.

Then Mirandola saw her mother return, and put
down food and flagon with a sigh. And she knew
that that splendid young man was lying there with-
out food, and the thought of the harm she had done
him touched her heart to a sudden impulse.

“T will take the food to him myself,” she said.

Instantly Father Joseph laid a firm hand on her
arm.

“When he is weaker,” he said.

Mirandola looked at him, held back by his grip,
while her impulse died away.

“Yes. Not till evening,” said he, with that as-
surance that he was wont to use whenever he spoke
of the certainties of salvation. And more than his
heavy grip that tone held Mirandola.

She passed the long day anxiously, fearing what
weakness and the want of food might do to that
mirror of chivalry, the young Duke, at whom folk
gazed in the glorious courts of Spain, when he came
to visit the victorious King; what wonder then he
stirred hearts when he rode through the little fields
to such a tower as this in the lonely lands, where
the forest ended all, and illustrious knights rode
rarely and were gone by in a canter. She was ill at
ease all day. Only once a sparkle of her own merri-
ness came back to her. Her mother had asked her
to walk in the garden with Gulvarez, and Mirandola

THE LOVE-POTION 171

spoke of the Duke’s hunger, and thought that he
might take food from his friend and would doubtless
drink with him. So Gulvarez went, with a large
plate full of food, and a flagon of wine and two
glasses; and the voice of the Duke was heard,
ringing out with that magical anger. Back then
came Gulvarez, denying all the things that were
said the loudest, and that must have been clearly
heard, and brooding upon the rest; and there was
no walk in the garden.

And all that day went by, and none could bring
food to the Duke. But when evening came and all
was quiet but the birds; and light came in serenely,
level through windows; with the flash of insects, sil-
ver across the rays; all in the calm Mirandola took
the flagon, and past the bowmen went to the Duke’s
door, and opened it and stood there in the doorway.
And for a moment his anger muttered, then stum-
bled, and was all silent, as though it had faded out
with the fading of day, or had some magical cause
whose power had waned, and he lay there looking at
Mirandola and she stood looking at him. So passed
a moment.

Then she came to him and poured into a chalice
a little wine from the flagon. Once more she offered
him wine; but it was all earthly now, the glory and
the glow of southern vineyards, and distilled by no
prentice hand such as Ramon Alonzo’s. And he
accepted the wine, lying weak on his bed. Awhile
she spoke with him, until there came to him the
thought of food, and when he spoke of it she

172 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

went to bring it to him. She passed again by the
bowmen, who questioned her in low voices. “He
will recover,” she said, and sighed as she said it,
thinking of all the night and day he had lain there
pale and weak. She went to the kitchen and gathered
small savoury things such as might be lightly eaten
by one that had been so strangely troubled, small
earthly condiments of daily uses that had nought
to do with magic. And a rumour, of things over-
heard from the mutterings of the bowmen, spread
through the house and told that the Duke would
eat again.

Then came Gulvarez to the kitchen offering to
carry the plates for Mirandola. And this she let him
do. And when they were come to the door of the
Duke’s bedchamber he carried the plates in, Miran-
dola waiting without. But even yet the Duke’s anger
was not over, and the sound of it boomed down the
corridor, as he swore that none in that house should
bring him food, unless Mirandola; and least of all
Gulvarez, who had brought him to those accursed
doors within which he had suffered so vilely. And
Gulvarez came out so swiftly that the food shook
and slid on the plates ; then Mirandola took them and
went in; and Gulvarez remained awhile with the
bowmen, explaining such things as men explain when
sudden fault has been found with them unjustly of
justly.

The Duke ate little for weakness; but Mirandola
sat by his bed, and somehow her eyes strengthened
him when he looked in the deep calm of them, as

THE LOVE-POTION 173

though he found a power in their gentleness: and
often he stopped, overwrought by the wrong that
that house had done him, but flashes from Miran-
dola’s eyes seemed to beat across his wrath and
seemed to parry it, and after a while he would eat
a little again. And so a little of his strength came
back, and for brief whiles he slept. Then Miran-
dola crept out and told the bowmen, and one by one
they stole in on their soundless feet, and saw that
his sleep was natural, and stole out again; and all
the house was hushed, and the Duke slept till morn-

ing.

CHAPTER XIX

FATHER JOSEPH EXPLAINS HOW THE LAITY HAVE
NO NEED OF THE PEN

Gee and Gulvarez went early to the
Duke’s bedchamber to assure themselves that
the hopes of last night were just and that the Duke
would live. He still lay weakly upon his bed but his
anger flamed up at once as soon as he saw them,
and was the old enormous wrath they had known
the last two days. Before it they backed away to-
wards the door, and ever as they tarried fresh waves
of it overtook them and seemed to sweep them fur-
ther. Sometimes one would delay and stammer
polite excuses, while the other backed away faster;
then the rush of the Duke’s anger would bear down
on the one that was nearest and drive him back’
spluttering ; and another swirl of it soon would over-
take the other. So, breathless with protestations,
they were both swept out, and behind the closed
door the Duke’s anger died into mutterings, like the

croon of a tide along a deserted shore.

Descending they joined the Lady of the Tower
and, Father Joseph in the room where the boar-
spears hung. And in answer to the anxious en-

174

FATHER JOSEPH EXPLAINS 175

quiry in his lady’s eyes as they entered Gonsalvo
said: “He has slept and is no weaker. But the
humours of sickness have not yet left him.”

She turned then to Gulvarez, seeming to look for
some clearer news from the stranger.

“He does not yet lucidly understand your hos-
pitality,’ he said. “He comprehends where he is,
but the fevers of his malady delude him concerning
it. As yet he knows not his friends, or only sees
them transmuted by the vain humours of fever.”

At this moment Mirandola passed by the door
carrying two dishes, one of meat and the other of
fruit. The Lady of the Tower was about to call
her, for she was perplexed between the Duke’s weak-
ness and the strength of his fevers; but Father
Joseph laid a hand on her arm, and Mirandola went
by. Then Father Joseph went to the open doorway
and blessed the carrying of the dishes.

And much of that morning Mirandola sat by the
Duke’s bedside, and at whiles he spoke with her
and at whiles ate a little from the two dishes; and
while she was with him his great anger was lulled;
but not yet would he take food or drink from any in
all that household save only Mirandola, nor tolerate
one of them at the door of his bedchamber. And
the rumour went through the house that the Duke
would live, but it passed through gatherings of
doubts and fears that had haunted the house since
first he was taken ill, and many a fear clung yet
to the hopeful rumour. But Father Joseph, who had
some familiarity with the ways of life and death,

1

176 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

saw how it would be and, deeming that there would
be no entertainings at the Tower, nor high doings,
nor any need of him, his thoughts turned now to his
own little house, and the humble folk that came there
for many a work-a-day need and to be unburdened
of their different sins. He therefore said farewell
to his host.

“What?” said the Lord of the Tower. “You
leave us already?”

“It is time,” said Father Joseph.

“But you will help us to entertain the Duke?”

“Haply,” said Father Joseph, “he will lie awhile
in bed.”

“But when he is recovered,” said Gonsalvo, “we
will give a banquet to celebrate his deliverance.”

But Father Joseph was more sure of the passing
of the illustrious visitor’s illness than he was of the
fading of his anger, in the heat of which he had
himself stood once already.

“I must return to the village,” he said.

Mirandola had entered the room.

“Then you will come again,” said Gonsalvo, “to
marry Mirandola to Señor Gulvarez.”

For Gonsalvo had a small chapel in his house.

“Gladly” said Father Joseph.

“Thank Father Joseph,” said the Lady of the
Tower.

“Thank you,” said Mirandola.

Then away went Father Joseph; and soon from
the pinnacles of lofty plans his mind descended to
the little sins that the folk of the village he tended

FATHER JOSEPH EXPLAINS 177,

would have been sinning while he was away. He
tried to think as he walked of the sins that each
would have done ; sometimes some girl of strange or
passionate whims would a little puzzle his forecast,
` but for the most part he guessed rapidly, and just as
he named to himself the sin of his last parishioner
he reached the door under the deep black thatch of
the house he loved so well.

He turned the handle and entered: it was not
locked, for none in those parts dared rob Father
Joseph’s house; nor was the sin of robbery much
practised in houses there but rather on the road in
the open air. He entered and was once more with
his pleasant knick-knacks that he had not seen for
two days; and for a while his eye roamed over them,
going from one to another, as he sat in his favour-
ite chair in deep content. For a long while he sat
thus, drawing into his spirit the deep quiet of his
house, which had never been broken by such events
as trouble the calm of the world: no illustrious hi-
dalgos sojourned there; rarely even they passed it
by: the sound of a trumpet or the sight of a gon-
falon came once, or at most twice, in a genera-
tion. His gaze was reposing now on an old mug
shaped like a bear, which rested upon a bracket:
sometimes he was wont to fill it with good ale and
so pass lonely evenings when sunset was early. Gaz-
ing now at the mug those evenings came back to his
memory and he thought of the joyous radiance that
there seemed to have been about them, when again
and again till it interrupted his thoughts came a very

178 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

furtive knock on his back door. He imagined the
timid hand of some penitent sinner, come there to be
rid of his sin, and arose to open the door. When
he opened the little back door that looked to the
forest, who was there but Ramon Alonzo?

The young man was wearing a fine old cloak of
his father’s, which Mirandola had begged for him
on the day that he had gone cloakless away from
the Tower. She had told Peter to take it after him,
but Peter’s master had not allowed him to go until
the Duke had been received at the Tower ; but when
the banquet came to that sudden end none thought
any more of Peter except Mirandola, so he took
the cloak and went; and quietly, as he left, Miran-
dola said to him, “Tell him all that you saw.” So
Peter had travelled all the rest of that day and all
through the night, and had come on Ramon Alonzo
in the magician’s wood; for Ramon Alonzo going
circuitously round Aragona, over fields and wild
heath, by night, and in the daylight travelling cau-
tiously at such times as his shadow looked human,
arrived on the second night so late near the house
of the Master that he decided to sleep in the wood
and enter by daylight. There Peter found him
about dawn with the cloak, and glad Ramon
Alonzo was of it. But when he heard of the malady
that had overtaken the Duke, the dreadfulness of
which Peter told in all fullness, and learned that
the Duke had just drunk of a flagon of wine, he
knew at once with a guilty inspiration that it had
been the love-potion, and supposed that by some

FATHER JOSEPH EXPLAINS 179

mistake of the serving maids the flagon meant for
Gulvarez had been changed with the one for the
Duke. Then anger came on him against the ma-
gician, and a hatred of all his spells, and he de-
termined to put his plan into instant practice. But
this plan involved writing, for he meant to write
the syllables of the spell that opened the shadow-box,
one by one amongst other writings, and to trick the
magician into reading them for him. Therefore
he thanked and said farewell to Peter, and as soon
as ever the man was out of sight he turned his back
upon the house in the wood, and travelling fast but
cautiously and going wide again round Aragona
under cover of night, came secretly the next morn-
ing out of the forest to the little door at the back
of the priestly house. And there as Father Joseph
opened the door, ready to give absolution for some
small sin, the first words that greeted him were:
“I prey you, Father, to teach me the way of the
pen.”

Truly now there is no sin in the pen itself, though
it be a full handy tool in the fingers of liars, and
the greater part of the cheating that there is in the
world is done by the pen to this day. And whatever
Father Joseph suspected of Ramon Alonzo’s work
he could not easily refuse instruction in the proper
handling of aught that was in itself so innocent. He
therefore rather temporized.

“The pen,” he said. “That is indeed, no doubt,
a worthy tool; yet of little use to the laity. Those
things it is needful to know are written already, and,

180 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

should more ever be necessary, are there not monks
to write it? Or is it to be supposed that those most
illustrious presences, our spiritual over-lords, should
have neglected some matter that it were well to write
and should have failed to record it?”

“Indeed no,” said Ramon Alonzo, lowering his
head in a pose of appropriate humility.

“For what purpose then would you put your own
hand to the pen?” Father Joseph asked of him.

“T would fain know the handling of it,” replied
Ramon Alonzo, “yet not from any wish to write
upon parchment, for that is no knightly accomplish-
ment.”

“Indeed not,” said Father Joseph; “yet to know
the handling of a pen, as your father knows, and
the way that it takes up ink, and sometimes to have
essayed sundry marks with it, as he hath, upon
parchment, are things that add credit to a knightly
house. This much I will teach you. But deem not
that there is aught to be written that hath not long
since been well said, and committed to parchment,
and given to the charge of those whose duty it is
to watch and protect learning.”

No more than this Ramon Alonzo needed. He
therefore thanked Father Joseph courteously, who
went and fetched a pen; and soon the young man
was being taught the way of it, where the fingers go,
the place of the thumb, the movement of the whole
hand, the method of taking ink, and the suitable
intervals.

“Here,” said Father Joseph, “near the window,

FATHER JOSEPH EXPLAINS 181

where you shall have the full light.” For Ramon
Alonzo had seated himself in a corner and dragged
the little table to the darkest part of the room.

But Ramon Alonzo, as it drew near noon, shunned
any approach to light, and would go near no spot
on which shadows fell. Whether Father Joseph
noticed or not this strange avoidance of light, his
intellect pounced at once on his pupil’s trivial answer,
excusing himself for keeping his seat in the dusk of
the corner ; and from that moment his old suspicions
came on to the right trail, which they never left
till the strange secret they followed had been tracked
up to its lair.

As Ramon Alonzo came by the knack of the pen
he began to copy one by one on the parchment those
three syllables, clear in his memory, that were the
key of the shadow-box. He rejoiced to think that
by asking Father Joseph for never a letter of the
Christian alphabet he persuaded him that he sought
for no more than he said, a-certain way with the
pen that should be a knightly accomplishment. Far
otherwise was it: for, as Father Joseph watched
those sinister syllables that were no language of
ours, he began to see a young mind given over
wholly to magic, and as each syllable appeared on
the parchment he muttered inaudibly, “The Black
Art. Oh, the Black Art.”

But with practice Ramon Alonzo made those
syllables clearer and clearer, until they appeared
on the parchment whereon he wrote no otherwise
than as they were in the great book of the ma-

182 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

gician that lay on the lectern in the room that was
sacred to magic. Father Joseph watched the work
of the pen that he guided, and all the while saw
those syllables growing clearer, until, although he
knew not what they were, nor the language in which
they were written, he saw unmistakable omens and
threats about them, and all those omens were mag-
ical, sinister, evil. Ramon Alonzo carried it off
lightly, saying he but made idle strokes with the
pen, believing he deceived Father Joseph. That hour
for which he so often yearned went by, when the
shadows of other men were the same as his, and
still he worked at the pen. He saw, still close in
his corner, the red and level rays shine in and lend
a splendour to Father Joseph’s knick-knacks. He
saw the evening come, and those big Cathayan
shapes that he made, black and bold in the gloaming.
Then Father Joseph arose to light his tapers, and
before he did that Ramon Alonzo thanked him and
hastily bade him farewell, and was soon away on his
circuitous journey that should lead him wide in the
dark round Aragona.

So Ramon Alonzo came next night to the house
in the wood. But Father Joseph saddled his mule
in the morning and rode away by the very earliest
light, and came in the afternoon to the hilly house
of a priest he knew who had much knowledge of
magic; and with him he brought that parchment on
which all day Ramon Alonzo had practised those
curious signs. This priest went sometimes down
to the church in Aragona, but dwelt mostly alone in .

FATHER JOSEPH EXPLAINS 183

his house, where he worked on a scheme for the mit-
igation of sin, or read books exposing magic. Up
- the rocky track to that house on his struggling mule
Father Joseph arrived; and when the gaiety of their
greetings was over he showed his friend the marks
that were on the parchment.

“I fear, Aloysius,” he said, “we have nought good
here.”

Brother Aloysius took it. “Nought good,” he
said. “Nought good at all.”

Then he put it down and put on great spectacles
and looked at the parchment again and consulted a
book, repeating now and then, “There is no good
here,’ and shaking his head often.

And suddenly he became sure and spoke with
a clear certainty.

“Indeed,” he said, “it is a most heathen spell.”

CHAPTER AX
THE MAGICIAN IMITATES A WAY OF THE GODS

(oy that day went by with its splendours and

was added to past days; and night came up
and covered the skies of Spain, and the magician
sat all alone in his house in the wood. He was not
wholly hostile to man; but, sitting there leaning for-
ward upon a table whereon one taper flared, he was
brooding on problems so far from our work-a-day
cares, so far beyond even that starry paling which
bounds our imaginations, that men and women were
not to him that matter of first importance they are
to us, but only something to be noted and studied
as we might study whatever rumours may come of
life upon planets of suns that are other than ours.
His care for humanity was solely this, that amongst
its children, whether in Spain or elsewhere, were
those that were worthy to receive and cherish, and
carry to those that would bring it to the far dim-
ness of time, the mighty learning that he himself
had had from the most illustrious of all the line of
professors that had held the Chair of Magic at
Saragossa. For the rest, his care was more with
the dominion that he held over captive shadows, and

184.

A WAY OF THE GODS 185

their far wanderings; the messages that they carried
and the inspirations they brought; than with that
narrow scope, and the brief stay, with which we are
familiar. Could we know the supplications that his
shadows sometimes took for him to great spirits
that chanced on a journey near to Earth’s orbit;
could we know the songs and the splendours with
which they often replied; it might be that our hearts
would thrill to his strange traffic till we might for-
get to blame his aloofness from man. Only in rarest
moments, perhaps as an organist sleeps, and his
hand falls on to the keys playing one bar straight
from dreams; or just at the apex of fever in tropical
forests when strange birds are mating; or, east-
wards from here, where a player upon a reed in
barbarous mountains hits ancestrally on a note that
his tribe have known from the days of Pan; or
when some flash from the sunset shows a world-wide
band of colour that is not one of the colours that
man has named; only at rarest moments comes any
guess to us of those songs and splendours that the
lonely man drew from the spaces that lie bleak and
bare about the turn of the comet. And only that
day he had learned a curious story, a legend of the
interstellar darkness, from a spirit that was going
upon a journey, and had passed through the solar
planets wrapped in thunder, and had been that morn-
ing at his nearest to Earth.
Pama Alonzo had been absent now for six days;

and, having no pupil to whom to transmit the mys-
teries that he himself had had from so glorious a

186 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

source, the Master was solely occupied in his lone-
liness with legend and lore that are not of Earth
or our peoples. And as he brooded on matters that
are of moment outside our care and beyond the path
of Neptune, the step of Ramon Alonzo was heard in
the hush of the wood.

The young man entered vexed at that notable
failure of the potion he had compounded, and angry
for Mirandola, his father and mother, and the whole
household of his home. He had pictured the conster-
nation of that house, of which Peter had told him
tremblingly not only all, but more; and he laid the
blame on the author of the spells, which had seemed
too easy for mistakes to be possible, rather than on
his own forgetfulness. He entered believing that
he owed nothing to the magician, and determined
to learn no more of the making of gold so that he
should still owe him nothing, and to get his own
shadow back as his lawful due, and to rescue the
charwoman’s as an act of Christian chivalry. The
two men met, one brooding upon a wrong, the
other upon affairs beyond the orbit of Neptune, so
that they each spoke little. And presently Ramon
Alonzo, drawing forth a parchment, said: “Master,
this script which was brought to Spain by a wander-
ing man of Cathay, perchance hath matter of mo-
ment, and may even be worthy of your skill in
strange tongues.”

‘And with that he handed the parchment to the
magician. The master took it and held it low near _

A WAY OF THE GODS 187

the candle. “Ting,” he said. “Ting.” Then was
silent and shook his head.

So the first syllable was “Ting.” All the rest were
nonsense that Ramon Alonzo had written in levity.
More than that one syllable he durst not write, lest
the Master should know that he was seeking his
spell. There remained two more; and these he would
get in the same manner hereafter, when the Master’s
suspicions should have had time to sleep. For this
he bided his time. But he thought within a week
to have the key of the shadow-box.

“T know not what language it be,” said the Mas-
ter.

“No?” said Ramon Alonzo.

“None of Earth,” said the Master.

And the young man took back the parchment,
apologizing for troubling the Master’s learning. All
had been as he had planned; and he went then to the
dingy nook below the wooden stairs to share his
high hopes with the charwoman. And there he
found her among her brooms and pails, about to lie
down for the night on her heap of straw. Her eyes
flashed a welcome to him. And at once he said:
“I have the first syllable of the spell.”

Then thought overcast her face, and a little slowly
her old mind turned to the future and tried to find
all it would mean if he came by all three syllables.
And while youth, under those old stairs, was swiftly
building hopes on the roof of hopes, age was finding
objections.

“How will you find the others?” she asked.

188 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

“The same way,” he said, and told her how
he had carried out his plan.

“He will suspect,” she said.

“He does not yet,” said he.

And she shook her head as she thought of old
wiles of the Master.

“Has he taken back the false shadow he made?”
she asked.

“I have not yet asked him,” the young man said,
“but he will.”

“If he does not,” she said, “the false one will
show whenever your own true shadow dwindles
at noon.”

But these objections he had not come to hear in
the triumphant moments that followed on his suc-
cess. He had thought that his own high hopes
would have driven away her melancholy, but now
it was saddening him.

“You shall have your own shadow back,” he
said, “and shall wear it in Aragona.”

That was his final attempt to cheer the old woman.
Then he left while he still could hope.

He went to his spidery room in the lonely tower
and there lay down to sleep, but plans came to that
mouldering bed instead of dreams, and far on into
the night he plotted the rescue of shadows. How
many a man through hours of silent darkness has
laid his lonely plans for things more insubstantial.

Plans of caution and plans of impatience came |
to Ramon Alonzo that night; and by the early
hours he blended them, and decided to wait three

A WAY OF THE GODS 189

days before asking the Master to read another script ;
and he satisfied his impatience, so far as it could be
satisfied, by planning to go the next day into the
wood to bring back another parchment, with a tale,
when the time came, of a meeting with one from:
Cathay. And a certain radiance in the youthful
mind decked the plan with glittering prospects of
success. Then Ramon Alonzo slept.

Descending a little late on the next morning the
young man found the food awaiting him that the
magician never failed to supply. He ate, then went
to the room that was sacred to magic. And there
was the Master seated before his lectern consider-
ing things beyond the concern of man.

“Would you learn more of the making of gold?”
he said.

“No,” said Ramon Alonzo.

A thin streak of joy passed through the Mas-
ter’s mind. For it was the established duty of all
the masters, more especially of those that were as
glorious as he; however far they might fare down
the ages, surviving the human span; to secure a
pupil to whom when he might be worthy the an-
cient secrets should be revealed at last: so should
the wisdom that had been brought so far, by cara-
vans that had all crumbled away and were long
since dust blowing over desolate lands, pass on to
centuries that would surely need it. And he had
thought that Ramon Alonzo might after years of
toil, and loneliness, and study, and abnegation, be
fit one day far hence for the dreadful initiation. But

190 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

if he persisted with his uncouth interest in so trivial
a matter as gold, then he was not the man. There-
fore the Master’s mind was briefly lit by a joy when
he heard his pupil renouncing this light pursuit;
and then his thoughts were afar again with those
things that lie beyond the concern of man. From
these he was brought back by the young man speak-
ing again.

“Master,” said Ramon Alonzo, “I would fain go
to the wood, and walk there awhile before I study
again.”

“As you will,” said the Master, and returned
to the contemplation of the curious way of a star,
which had not as yet been seen by any mortal
watcher.

Again those contemplations were interrupted.
“Master,” said Ramon Alonzo, “I thank you for
that shadow that you designed for me; and having
no longer any need of it, I pray you to take it
back.”

However old he was, however far were his
thoughts beyond the orbit of Earth, he was not to
be wholly duped by that young mind. Doubtless
he knew not Ramon Alonzo’s plan; yet the stir of
a fetter upon a floor of stone may betray the hope
of a slave to escape his prison, and Ramon Alonzo’s
wish to be rid of that shadow showed that some-
thing was afoot which if left unchecked might rob
the magical Art of a chosen pupil. Therefore, call-
ing back his thoughts from beyond the path of the
comet, across all the regions known to the human

A WAY OF THE GODS 191

imagination, he replied to Ramon Alonzo, saying:
“We that follow the Art, and that imitate so far
as we are able the examples of the gods, do not
take back our gifts.”

No protestations moved him; and Ramon Alonzo,
seeing at last that by every word he said he was
disclosing more and more clearly the existence of
a plan, turned away silent at last and went into the
wood.

CHAPTER XXI
WHITE MAGIC COMES TO THE WOOD

HROUGH the wood to which Ramon Alonzo
had gone with his plans he walked disconsolate.
What would he do when all his plans had succeeded
and he had got back his shadow, if this sinister thing
of gloom was to show at his heels whenever his
human shadow should drink in the noonday sun?
And his plans had seemed so sure.

Yet he was pledged to the knightly quest of the
charwoman’s shadow, whatever embarrassments
might befall his own, and from this the laws of
chivalry did not allow him to swerve. And the more
that she was an ancient and withered crone, the
more he knew that he must be true to his pledge, for
she had no other knight; no sword would stir for her
into the light but his. But he walked disconsolate

because of his own redundance of shadows which i

he foresaw to the end of his days.

It seems but a little thing to have two shadows,
too slight a cloud to darken the gaiety of any mood
of youth; how often on glittering evenings has a
man or a maiden danced, happy below the splen-

192

WHITE MAGIC 193

dour of arrayed chandeliers, and followed by scores
of shadows? But Ramon Alonzo had learned, as
those only learn who have ever lost their shadow,
that side by side with great things and with trivial,
there are deviations that are outside human pity;
and this, the most trivial of them all, any unusual
shape of a shadow, was no more tolerated than
horns and tail. So absurd a prejudice cannot be
credited unless it has been experienced.

He came in his melancholy walk to the mossy
roots of an oak; and there he sat him down, and
leaning back against the bole of the tree took out
from a wallet the parchment and pen and ink he
had brought and began to write supposed script of
heathen lands, and amongst it the second syllable of
the spell, which should shape for him two-thirds of
the key of the shadow-box.

Hardly had he written that one Cathayan syllable,
and added a few fantastic shapes of his own, when
he heard a rustling a little way off in the wood.
He sat upon the moss and listened: it grew to a
pattering; a sound as of small feet scurrying over
leaves, pushing through bracken, leaping rocks and
dead branches, in a hurry that seemed to have sud-
denly come to the wood, and was stirring bramble
and briar before him and far on his left and right.
And it was coming nearer. Then Ramon Alonzo
heard shrill little squeaks above the sound of the
scurrying; and all at once an imp came bounding
by, and two more and then another. Then the snap
of a twig and a rustle drew his attention upon his

194 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

other side, and six more were running past him; and
soon he saw a line of imps fleeing desperately through
the wood, not troubling to keep out of sight of him
on the far side of trees going by, some passing
barely out of reach of his hand. He saw their small
round bodies bobbing by, then heard them brush
through the bracken into the distance, and not for a
moment did one of them cease to scurry. They
were jabbering to each other as they went, evidently
in great perturbation. And then a gnome came by,
carrying a bundle, an old fellow three times as large
as an imp and wearing clothes of a sort, especially
a hat. And he was clearly just as frightened as the
imps, though he could not go so fast. Ramon
Alonzo saw that there must be some great trouble
that was vexing magical things; and, since gnomes
speak the language of men, and will answer if spoken
to gently, he raised his hat, and asked of the gnome
his name. The gnome did not stop his hasty shuffle
a moment as he answered “Alaraba,”’ and grabbed
the rim of his hat but forgot to doff it. g

“What is the trouble, Alaraba?’ said Ramon
Alonzo.

“White magic. Run!” said the gnome, and
shuffled on eagerly. More than this he did not say,
nor thought more necessary, for he had uttered the
one thing that magical folk dread most.

A few more things ran by that haunt woods
that are subject to magic, one or two elves and
their like; then a deep hush came on the wood,
for everything had fled. Ramon Alonzo wondering,

l
WHITE MAGIC 195

and listening quiet in the hush, heard after a while
shod hooves, coming from that direction from which
everything had fled. Then he heard branches brush-
ing by, far noisier than the soft scurrying of the
flight of the magical things, but leisurely and calmly.
This was nothing that fled: this then was the white
magic. The hooves drew nearer and the brushing
of large branches. Then a mule’s face came through
the foliage, and, bending low to avoid the bough of
an oak tree, there appeared Father Joseph.

His face was very red and very moist, for rid-
ing through a wood is no joyous pastime. He did
not look a shape to have driven to terror all magical
things that dwelt in the dark of the wood.

“Good morrow,” said Father Joseph.

“Good morrow, Father,” replied Ramon Alonzo,
rising up from his mossy seat and doffing his hat.
Then Father Joseph turned awhile to the business
of clambering out of the saddle, after which he
took his mule by the bridle and walked up to Ra-
mon Alonzo.

“What brings you to the wood?” said Ramon
Alonzo uneasily, for every dealing with magic leaves
its trace on the conscience.

Father Joseph beamed towards him with his red
face. “I came to see you,” he said.

Again Ramon Alonzo doffed his hat. “And what
brought you to me?” he said.

“Peril of your soul,” said Father Joseph jovially.

Ramon Alonzo was silent awhile. “Have I im-
perilled it?” he asked lamely.

{

196 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

“Have you had no dealings with the Black Art?”
smiled Father Joseph.

“None to risk my salvation,” said the young man.

“Let us see,” said Father Joseph.

Thereupon he made the sign of the Cross before
Ramon Alonzo. At which, though Ramon Alonzo
did not see it, for his face was towards the sun, the
false shadow fell off from his heels. Then Father
Joseph took a bottle of holy water, a hollowed rock-
crystal that hung on a small silver chain from his
belt, and cast the holy water upon the moss round
Ramon Alonzo’s heels. And the false shadow lying
upon the moss got up and ran away. Ramon Alonzo
saw it rush over a sunny clearing and lose itself
amongst great true shadows of trees.

“Gone!” he exclaimed.

“Yes,” said Father Joseph.

Thus passed from the young man’s sight, and
was lost for ever, a shadow false, growthless, and
magical, which none the less was all the shadow
he had. A little while ago he had longed for this
very thing, and had grown despondent with longing,
but a new feeling came to him now as he stood there
perfectly shadowless.

“What shall I do?” he said wistfully.

“Get back your own true shadow,” said Father
Joseph.

“But how if I cannot?” replied Ramon Alonzo.

“At all costs get back your shadow,” said the
priest.

“Is it so urgent as that?” asked Ramon Alonzo.

WHITE MAGIC 197

Then the benign red face of Father Joseph be-
_ came graver than he had ever seen it yet, like strange
changes that sometimes come suddenly at evening
over the sun, and he said in most earnest tones: “On
Earth the shadow is led hither and thither, wherever
he will, by the man; but hereafter it is far other-
wise, and wherever his shadow goes, alas, he must
follow; which is but just, since in all their sojourn
here never once doth the shadow lead, never once
the man follow.”

“And what of the shadow that has gone through
the wood?” asked Ramon Alonzo, awed by the
priest’s tones.

“Damned irretrievably,’ said Father Joseph.
“And if a man died with such a thing at his heels
it leads him violently to its own place. Four angels
could not drag him from it.”

Ramon Alonzo had held his breath, but breathed
again when he heard that death with the thing at his
heels was needed for its last triumph.

“Tt is gone from my heels now,” he said cheerily.

“Aye, and be thankful,” said Father Joseph. “But
wait! Where is your true shadow?”

“Tn a box,” the young man admitted.

“Such shadows darken nor grass nor flower in
all the lawns of Heaven.”

“Cannot they come there?” said Ramon Alonzo.

Said the priest: “They know not salvation.”

“And I?” asked Ramon Alonzo.

“T have told you.”

“Can a mere shadow take me?”

198 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

“They are of more account than man in the King--
dom of Shadows.”

“Can one not struggle against them?” said Ramon
Alonzo.

“Their power is irresistible,’ said the priest, “as
the power of the body over the shadow is irresistible:
here.”

“Alas,” said Ramon Alonzo.

“Can you not recover it?” asked Father Joseph.

“I will try,” said Ramon Alonzo.

Father Joseph smiled. He had come for no other
purpose than to give this wholesome advice. And
now he heavily clambered back to his saddle.

Ramon Alonzo doffed his hat and gravely said.
farewell, pondering all the while on the key he was
making that should open the shadow-box and free
his soul from the grip of a doomed shadow. But
how if the magician would not read again for him?’
How if he did not mutter again as he saw the
Cathayan syllable? In the anxiety that these queries.
caused him he hurried back to his mossy seat below
the bole of the oak, and hastened to write that sen-.
tence in which, like a curious jewel, the crystal of
some rare element, he set the second syllable of the:
spell. And however fantastic he tried to make the
letters that he invented, that Cathayan shape still
loomed from amongst the rest the most exotic, and
even—as he thought—the most dreadful, upon that
parchment. With this he hurried back to the house.
in the wood.

CHAPTER XAII
RAMON ALONZO CROSSES A SWORD WITH MAGIC

HADOWLESS Ramon Alonzo went through
the wood, as miserable in every glade and
every shaft of sunlight as a man that crept through
a city after being robbed of his raiment would feel
whenever he came to a busy street. Shadowless he
entered the house.

Now was a time for caution; his shadow gone,
his eternal soul in danger, now was the time to watch
the magician warily till an hour might come that
should be favourable to a request. But every cir-
cumstance that should have urged delay drove the
youth onward impetuously. How if he should die
that night, and the doomed shadow get a throttle-
grip immediately on his soul and drag it down to
Hell! He durst not wait. He must win back that
shadow. |

And even as he thought of the daily pains of Hell;
which are far beyond the imagination of such as
Ramon Alonzo, but he had been well instructed in
these by good men; even as he thought of the round
of pains and terrors, he remembered with chival-
rous faith the charwoman’s shadow.

199

200 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

He hastened along the corridors: the old woman
that had been Anemone, at work by her pail, saw
him go by and noticed that he was running : he came
to the door of the room that was sacred to magic.
He entered; there had been no spell on the docr
of late, so that the pupil might come to the room for
work; he came breathless before the magician. That
learned man was sitting at his lectern alone with his
own thoughts, that were beyond our needs or con-
cern: he raised his head and looked at Ramon
Alonzo.

“Master,” said Ramon Alonzo, “a script that I
had from a man in the wood. Strange words. I
pray you read them.”

In the look that the Master gave him he saw
he had failed.

None the less he spoke again all the more earnestly.
“T pray you, Master,” he said.

Still that look. And then the magician slowly
shook his head; and Ramon Alonzo knew that hope
was over.

“Give me my shadow,” he blurted out then.

“No,” said the magician.

“Why not?” shouted Ramon Alonzo,

it issmy teen

“T have learned nothing for your fee.”

“You have learned from me,” said the Master,
“the manner of compounding a love-potion.”

<I made it,” said Ramon Alonzo, “and a man
drank it.”

“He will love fiercely,” the magician said.

RAMON CROSSES A SWORD 201

“It made him most monstrous sick,” said Ramon
~ Alonzo.

“Ah,” said the magician.

“Give me back my shadow,” Ramon Alonzo re-
peated.

“I have taught you other learning for my fee,
rare learning come from of old.”

“You have not taught me the making of gold,”
said the youth.

“T have taught you a rarer wisdom, a more secret
thing.”

“What?” said Ramon Alonzo.

The magician paused, and in a graver voice he
said: “The oneness of matter.”

“Tt is naught to me,” said the other.

“Tt is a most rare learning,” the Master answered.
“Few know that there is but one element with a
hundred manifestations. Few knew it of old. And
few have handed this rare knowledge down. It is
worth incomparably more than my fee.”

“It is naught to me,” repeated Ramon Alonzo.
“Give back my shadow.”

“No,” said the magician, “for you cannot give
back this rare, this incomparable knowledge.
Neither shall I give back my fee.”

“The shadow was worthless: it would not grow.
‘And now it has run away.”

“Ah,” said the magician.

For the last time Ramon Alonzo blurted out his
useless request : “Give me back my shadow.”

202 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

And the magician answered: “I keep my just
rec

And Ramon Alonzo turned his face toward dam-
nation, yet remembered his knightly quest. “Then
only give me the charwoman’s shadow,” he said.

“She has had years for it,’ said the Master.

“Such years!” exclaimed Ramon Alonzo.

“They were many,” replied the magician.

“Give up her shadow,” said menacingly Ramon
Alonzo.

“No,” said the magician.

And on that No the young man’s sword was out
and its point was before the face of the magician.
He did not move his gaze from Ramon Alonzo or
from that glittering point, but leaned his right arm
out behind him, the hand feeling downwards, and
slightly bending his head as his arm went back. So
the Master’s hand came to the lid of a box on the
floor and felt the rim and opened it and went in,
and gripped what lay within all in an instant.

Then, flaming before the eyes of Ramon Alonzo,
appeared a flash of lightning fixed to a resinous hilt,
that dark and rounded lay gripped in the Master’s
hand. The flash was little longer than Ramon
Alonzo’s sword, and more jaggedly crooked, and
was rather red than yellow, as though it had slowly
cooled while it lay in the box.

At once the two men engaged, at first across
the lectern, then working wide of it as they fought.
Young Ramon Alonzo had a pretty style with the
sword, and the skill of his antagonist was nothing’

RAMON CROSSES A SWORD 203

magical, for his years had been given to other studies
- than those of thrusting and parrying TAG nis
weapon was magical, and thrilled up the steel the
moment it touched the rapier, jarring the young
man’s arm as far as the shoulder, shaking his elbow
and nearly wrenching his wrist. And every time
that either of them parried the young man felt that
jar and shock jolting along his right arm, So great
a blow might have cast his sword from his hand
had it been delivered by an earthly weapon, but
that lightning-flash with which the magician fought
had the curious effect of making Ramon Alonzo’s
fingers grip tighter whenever he felt the shock in
his arm. Had it not been for this he was lost. And
even though he kept his sword in his hand he had
hard work to parry, for the magician thrust rapidly
at him. Soon his arm was growing numb, and he
attacked vehemently then, so as to end it while he
still had strength in his arm; but the magician par-
ried each thrust and, once returning a lunge of
Ramon Alonzo’s, brought the weapon so near his
face that it singed his hair. And after that the
magician beat his mortal antagonist backwards,
dazzled and numbed but still fighting. It became
clear that had that Master given his days to the
sword and studied all the mysteries of the rapier he
had been a notable hand at it. None of the young
man’s thrusts went home; and suddenly a thrust of
the magician, partially parried, slipped over the
earthly hilt and along the mortal arm, searing the
flesh and setting fire to cloth, so that Ramon Alonzo

204 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

fought a few strokes with a flaming sleeve, till he
patted it out with his left hand and still fought on.
And now he was near the door and the Master press-
ing him still, a dark lithe shape lit up by the flash
of his eyes, in a gloomy room crossed and re-crossed
by the glare of the lightning. A sudden rally Ramon
Alonzo made from the lintel, but was beaten back
and again his arm was seared, and tumbling more
than retreating he reeled back through the door.
“Cross no swords with magic,” said the magician
warningly, with his strange sword in the doorway;
but he came no further, and Ramon Alonzo was left
alone with despair, while the Master returned to the
gloom of the room that was sacred to magic, and to
occupations that are beyond our knowledge.
Ramon Alonzo stayed awhile by the door, which
still opened to the gloom of the magical room, his
sword in his shaken hand, and not till he saw that
his enemy did not deign to follow did he turn slowly
away. But as soon as the thrill of the risk of death
was gone, new troubles and even terrors overtook
him. On Earth he had lost his shadow and lost a
fight; hereafter his salvation. He was defenceless in
this sinister house, for his sword had failed him, and
impetuously he had cast his careful and patient plans
away. He believed that none could advise him;
he saw, as men often do in such times of despond-
ency, nothing between him and everlasting damna-
tion. He would not even pray, counting himself
already among the damned, unto whom prayer is

Jods

forbidden. He heard the charwoman late at her `

RAMON CROSSES A SWORD 205

work in a corridor, but moved away from her, being
in no mood to speak. But she saw him and came
after him, and, seeing all at once the need that he
had of comfort, she brought it him, though he would
have none of it, so that she had to give comfort
without his knowledge.

He did not tell her that his false shadow was
gone, and would not tell her that the magician had
beaten him, nor that the shadow-box was locked
for ever, and his soul involved in the doom of his
true shadow; but he said, “All is lost.” And this
he repeated often, whenever he thought she was
trying to give him comfort.

“But you have the first syllable of the spell,”
she said.

Little had this comforted her when first he had
told her, but now that he needed comfort she said
it as earnestly as though by this one syllable alone
the long box could be opened.

“All is lost,” he repeated.

“The first syllable is Ting,” she said.

“All is lost,” said Ramon Alonzo.

“The next might be Tong or Tang,” said the old
woman. Idle enough such a remark, unlikely to be
true, light words on which to build a hope of escape
from Hell; Ramon Alonzo did not even answer
them; and yet they started a thought in the young
man’s mind that later led to a plan, out of which
he built a hope, as slender as that last bridge that
the Moslem crosses, but the hope seemed to lead to
salvation.

CHAPTER XXIII
THE PLAN OF RAMON ALONZO

HEN the charwoman found that the despair

of Ramon Alonzo was so vigorous that she

could bring him no comfort then, she went back to
the dismal haunt of her brooms and pans, while he
went lurking down the passages to watch for the
egress of the magician, bent only on clutching the
shadow-box, without any thought or plan how to
rescue the shadows within it. He found his sword
was still gripped in his hand and, looking at it, even
in that dim light, he saw that its glitter was gone and
all the steel gone grey from its meeting with magic.
A long while he waited. And, shadowless there
amongst so many shadows, he envied once more the
common inanimate things that had their simple
shadows and excited no man’s wonder. The magi-
cian lingered in his gloomy room, till Ramon Alonzo
wondered what dreadful plan he was working out
against him for having drawn sword in the room
that was sacred to magic. But already he had for-
gotten Ramon Alonzo and was brooding on problems
beyond the young man’s guesses. That he had
fought to protect his shadows was no more to him :

206

THE PLAN OF RAMON ALONZO 207

than it is to a master chess-player that he has locked
- the door of his room, when he goes to study alone the
mysteries of the Ruy Lopez. Fight and antagonist
were soon forgot, and he was following intricate
orbits of unknown moons, a lonely imagination.
From such studies he rose late, and Ramon
Alonzo saw his dark shape loom through the door-
way when the light of evening was far gone from
the corridors. To his joy he saw that the door
had been left wide open, and before the magician’s
steps had died wholly away the young man rushed
into the room that was sacred to magic and had his
hands on the shadow-box. First he put his sword’s
point to the crack between box and lid, then he smote
the box with the edge of it. But not thus easily
are souls won from damnation. The open door
would have hinted to any mind that was calmer that
there was something about that box that was not to
be opened by the first earthly implement. The gap
between lid and box was narrower than the gap be-
tween one granite slab and the next in the temple
beside the Sphinx, narrower than the line between
night and day; the delicate point of the rapier looked
gross beside it. And as for the material of the box
it was not of wood, which the young man had
thought to shatter, but some element that cared for
the edge of steel no more than steel itself cares for
the edge or point of a thin feather. He picked at
the padlock then; and something about the pad-
lock’s glittering hardness brought him to calmer
ways, and taught him that, though his soul was in

208 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

peril of loss, yet unreasoning haste would help him
no better in this than it would in any trifle of daily
things.

He put the shadow-box slowly back in its place
and sheathed his sword, from which lustre and
temper and ring seemed all to have gone, and walked
thoughtfully thence and came to the stairs of stone,
and ascended them and saw his spidery bed. There
he lay down for such a night as men have who
see doom close. Though the doom be only earthly
they plan and plan, and mix up their plans with
hopes, and then again they mix them with despairs,
till all over the web of reason that makes their
plans come curious patterns of the despairs and
hopes; and least of all the weaver knows which
is which. And the stars go slowly gliding by, and
the gradual affairs of Earth; and the plans race on
and on. And if the doom be earthly, often towards
dawn fatigue overtakes their plans and they sleep
when the birds sing. But Ramon Alonzo did not
dare to rest from his whirl of plans, and did not
sleep till he saw clear reason shine faint through
his hopes and despairs, and then it was broad morn-
ing.

That ray of reason that shone at last on his plans
came from that remark of the charwoman that she
made in her feeble efforts to bring him comfort:
“it might be Tong or Tang.” Some time between
dawn and midnight these words had come back to
him in all their absurdity. Of the myriad sounds
that might form a syllable in an utterly unknown -

THE PLAN OF RAMON ALONZO 209

tongue how would it be possible thus lightly to
guess the right one? “Tong or Tang” : the sugges-
tion was ludicrous. And it could not be Tong or
Tang in any case, for the second syllable of the
spell was far too unlike the first for the difference
to be in no more than the change of a vowel. What
might it be? He had much of the night before him,
with all its wide spaces for fears and lost hopes to
roam in: he had ample leisure in which to wonder
what was the second syllable. But not until light
began to creep through the wood did he order his
wonder and guesses into a plan.

His plan was this: the number of possible sylla-
bles was limited; he knew the first syllable, he would
suppose the last to be “ab,” and he would say the
spell over and over again to the shadow-box varying
only the second syllable. When every possible sound
had been tried for that he would change the last syl-
lable to “bab,” and try again. Then to “bac,” then
“bad,” then “baf”; and, every time that he changed
the last syllable, going through all the sounds that
could possibly form the second. He would work
through all the hours of day and night in which
the magician was away from his room. And one
day years hence he would hit on the three syllables
and see the shadow-box open before he died. He
calculated it might take forty years.

That he would hold on to the end, crouching
upon the gloomy floor murmuring three syllables to
the padlock, he did not doubt. Sooner or later a
man might have stopped, saying, “Is it worth it?”

210 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

if the box had held the whole wealth of the Indies;
but Ramon Alonzo would work for his soul’s sal-
vation. And all the while he remembered the
knightly quest to which he had pledged his chivalry.
Morning shone wide on the wood and he fell asleep.

When Ramon Alonzo woke his plan was as clear
in his mind as though he had pondered it further
during his sleep. It was then late in the morning.
He went to the charwoman, following the sound of
her pail, and putting aside the old woman’s efforts
to comfort him obtained from her carefully the
hours at which the magician left his room, the re-
sult of all her experience. Often before he had dis-
cussed plans and hopes with her, but not now, for
he based upon this plan all the hope that he had in
time or eternity, and would discuss it with none.
Thence he went straight to the room that was sacred
to magic, and offered his sword, hilt foremost, to
the magician. The magician bade him keep it; for,
whatever terrors vexed him from beyond the path
of the comet, he had no fear of any earthly sword.
Neither man desired to continue their quarrel, the
youth because he saw that his folly already had
brought his soul to the very brink of Hell, and he
regretted his haste; the magician because his need of
a pupil, upon whom to unburden himself of some
of the wisdom he had carried alone down the ages,
was a greater need than Ramon Alonzo knew. So
that the tensity between them passed; and the magi-
cian turned his mind to the obligation, that is laid
upon all magicians, of handing on to a pupil the lore

THE PLAN OF RAMON ALONZO 211

that has come to them from the Dread Masters; for
so the magicians of old are known by all that follow
the Art: thus is there magic even to this day.
Ramon Alonzo meanwhile was only planning and
waiting to rob the box within which the magician
enslaved his shadows. He knew not when the day
would come on which he would rob the box: it
might be years hence; he might be grey when he did
it: but all his fervour and patience were centred on
this. His scheme may seem little better than the
Black Art; but he had been taught from childhood
that such crafty ways were justified in cases that
touched the safety of the soul, nor did he hold that
the Master had earned his fee. His whole attention
lost in the plans he was making, arranging in count-
less formulae a legion of possible syllables, he
scarcely heard the suave voice of the Master speak-
ing across the gloom to him.

“What learning would you have of me?”

Back came his thoughts from a far imagined year,
in which with a sudden spell that was right at last
he should free his shadow from that eternal doom
that ownerless shadows share with the souls of those
who were once their masters ; back came his thoughts
as alert as though they had wandered never an
hour away from that very morning.

“I would learn the making of some more durable
thing,” said Ramon Alonzo, “than gold.”

And the Master smiled thereat, as Ramon Alonzo
had hoped.

“We shall therefore study,” the Master said, “the

212 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

making of Persian spells, which, more than any other
inscription of magic, charm spirits whose courses
are not within this sphere; and thus they shall be
remembered after Earth.”

He rose and placed upon the lectern a tome in a
leather binding as rough and black as a saddle on an
old battlefield, written by one of the Magi in his
old age before the fall of Sidon.

“Tf speech would be had by the folk of Earth
with those that dwell not here, and spell be sought
that shall compel their answer, it is in this book,”
said the Master.

Then began the teaching of heathen script, with
its dots and curious flourishes, the pronouncing of
alien vowels, and strange intonations; and all that
labour that thoughts must undergo to bring up wis-
dom out of a former age, which is no lighter than
the toil of the miners who dig up bygone forests
from out of the past of the Earth. And all the time
that Ramon Alonzo learned, his attention was fixed
upon the approach of that hour when the magician
would leave his room that was sacred to magic and
sail away a dark shape down the corridor, and he
should have leisure at last to attend to his soul’s
salvation. And that hour came so slowly that in
one of those lingering moments the fear came to
Ramon Alonzo that time was done and eternity was
begun and his doom was to learn heathen spells in
the gloom for ever and ever, while the blessed sat -
in the sunlight singing in Spanish. And this fear
passed, giving way to one more terrible, that told him

{

THE PLAN OF RAMON ALONZO 213

far worse awaited him than this, unless he could
rescue his shadow from the doom it must share with
his soul. .

The hour came at last when, with an earnest re-
minder of the way of a heathen vowel, the magician
arose and went bat-like out of the room. For many
moments Ramon Alonzo sat motionless, listening
to fading echoes from the feet of that master of
shadows; then he was down by the shadow-box
eagerly uttering a spell. Not a flicker made the pad-
lock. Rapidly he uttered another, and then another,
and with a kind of sing-song intoned spell after spell
in the gloom and dust of the floor, bending above the
shadow-box. The first syllable was always Ting,
which he knew to be right; the last was always Ab,
which was only an assumption that he meant to vary
slowly through weary years; the second syllable
he changed every time. The thought of the years
that he should spend in that room murmuring spells
to the box did not appal him, for he knew that the
relation of all time to eternity is as a drop to the
sea: he only feared that those years might be too
few. Close to him lay the box that held the
magician’s weapon, the old flash of lightning. It
had neither padlock nor keyhole and, when he tried
to raise the lid, it seemed to be shut for ever : by what
magic it opened he knew not. He rightly reflected
that the magician, having gone from the room with-
out it, had other and probably more terrible weapons.
He turned again to his monotonous work.

Towards evening the magician came back again;

214 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

and Ramon Alonzo ceased his lonely mutterings, and
soon was learning again old Persian lore, for the plan
was growing in the Master’s mind to make of hima
magician. Had he studied with such a master,
patiently following that lore whose splendours have
made many forget salvation, he could have had a
name that would have resounded through Wizardry,
and hereafter have had great honour among the
damned. Of this honour the magician had spoken
once, when Ramon Alonzo had wonderingly en-
quired of the present state of that illustrious profes-
sor who had held the Chair of Magic at Saragossa.
“He walks through Hell,” said the magician, ‘“flam-
ing, an object of awe and reverent veneration, while
all abase themselves as he goes by, their faces low
in the cinders. He is, as many have told me, an
apparition of glory, and amongst the first of all the
splendours of Hell.”

From such a fame Ramon Alonzo now wilfully
turned away. Such choices have often to be made.

Whenever the Master blamed his inattention he
apologized gracefully and pretended diligence, but
his heart was far from Persia, and never a spell he
learned that would have hailed passing spirits and
given him news unbiased by the narrower views of
Earth. And thus he lost what he lost, and gained
what he gained.

And at last night came and the magician left him;
and, rising as though he too would go, he tarried in
the room and joyfully looked to have the long night
alone with his work. He had no light but the gleam

THE PLAN OF RAMON ALONZO 215

of a sickle moon, for he did not dare to burn the
magician’s taper, lest its shortening should show
how late he had been at work; and the young moon
soon sank: he had forgotten food and even water,
and sleep seemed unnecessary and impossible to him.
He needed no light except to watch the padlock;
and for this purpose he laid a finger upon it all night
long, to feel if it moved for any spell that he said.
Owls going afield for their nocturnal hunt saw
Ramon Alonzo bent over the box, and saw him again
as they returned in the chill: bands of moths to
whose glowing eyes the night is luminous saw his
shape in the corner, and with other hours of the
night came other moths of wholly different tribes;
they saw the same shape there : mice that at first were
terrified at the sound of the human voice grew used
to its long monotony, and ran all round the motion-
less crouching figure: stars that he knew not saw
him kneeling there. l

And then, as a greyness ied t the night and made
all hopes seem groundless and his long labour absurd,
there came a sudden quiver into the padlock just as
he uttered a spell; he felt it vibrating his finger-tips.
He had said thousands of spells that night, and for
none had the padlock moved; and now it had quiv-
ered, but it did not open. Hopes had shot through
his mind in that moment of quivering, singing to
him, of salvation, only to fall like dead birds. He
said the same spell again : again the padlock quivered.
Yet it remained shut. Ramon Alonzo sat back on
his heels and wondered. Then he said it again, and

216 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

over and over; and always the same thing hap-
pened. By dim grey light that came in he now saw
the padlock, and no movement in it could be per-
ceived by the eye, but always he felt the quiver
along his finger-tip whenever he said that spell.
Somehow it increased his despair, for he believed
that the spell he was using was the correct one and,
for some reason he could not guess, would do no
more when uttered by him than to make that faint
vibration. Again and again he repeated it, and al-
ways the same thing happened. The spell was Ting
Yung Ab.

He would not leave it to continue his formula,
because no other spell he had used had moved the
padlock at all; so he went on hopelessly repeating it
while the dawn grew wider and chillier, and more
and more objects appeared out of the dark with their
shadows; and their shapes seemed to bring him back
to his shadowless situation, and all these material
things seemed to be triumphing over him one by
one, like an army of victors marching by one of its
prisoners. Amongst these fancies of despair he
noticed at last that the quivering of the padlock oc-
curred at one part of the spell he uttered, and not
quite at the end of it. It occurred at the word
Yung. He said the spell slowly then to make sure
of this, for hitherto he had spoken rapidly. And
sure enough, just as he said the word Yung, the
padlock always quivered, and was quiet again as he
said the word Ab.

A hope came to Ramon Alonzo, glorious and sud-

THE PLAN OF RAMON ALONZO 217

den as sunrise, but he would not acknowledge it in
that chill hour, burdened by his despairs; yet he
planned a change in his formula and went to bed
and slept. And when he awoke in the broad and
brilliant day the hope was still with him, and it
had grown since dawn.

CHAPTER XXIV
RAMON ALONZO DANCES WITH HIS SHADOW

AMON ALONZO descended, ate hungrily, and
hastened to the room that was sacred to magic;

and there was the Master in his usual place. There
was reproach in the Master’s eye for the young
man’s lateness, but words he did not waste, reserv-
ing them for that instruction in heathen spells which
he immediately commenced. Every day the Master’s
intention was growing clearer and the young man
guessed it now: his was to be a name as revered, as
el as his who had held the Chair of Magic
at Saragossa; his wisdom, his loneliness, has aloof-
ness, were to be as those of the dweller in the som-
bre house in the wood; his should be power at which
the just should shudder; and mothers that could not
call their children from play in the long evenings
when they should be in bed would in the last resort
shout Ramon Alonzo to them. Against this ter-
rible fame the young man’s blood cried out, and the
birds aided him, calling out of the wood, and the
sunlight seemed on his side and against magic.
Yesterday he had dared to make no protest against
anything the Master might teach him, for he had

218

RAMON ALONZO DANCES 219

seen in years of obsequiousness his only chance
of ever recovering his shadow; but a new hope
strengthened him now, and he asked a question that
was in itself a protest. The Master was teaching him
slowly a spell of terrible potency when Ramon
Alonzo said: “Master, what chances of salvation
hath a man that shall make use of this spell?”

“Salvation! Salvation!’ said the Master. “A
thing common to countless millions. The ordinary
experience, hereafter, of half the human race. Is
this to be put against knowledge of the hour of
the return of the comet, against speech from these
small fields, with spirits that wander from world
to world, against strange tongues, runes and en-
chantments, and knowledge of ancient histories and
visions of future wars; is this to be put against a
hold upon the course of a star? Rather would I
flame beside the Count of the Mountain, who held
the Chair of Magic at Saragossa, and burn in that
bright splendour that torments but cannot subdue
him, than share with the ignorant populace any
bliss that is common to vulgar righteousness. Aye,
and upon the sulphur that he treads, damned if you
will but held in reverence, kings have not hesitated
to abase themselves in honour of his fame that re-
sounds beyond time and far beyond earthly bound-
aries.

Ramon Alonzo did not dare to say more: it was as
though a student at work in a dingy classroom had
claimed that some boyish game for which his own
heart was longing was of more importance than the

220 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

honoured learning that was being taught from the
desk. The magician was growing angry: Ramon
Alonzo bent his head to learn those Persian spells,
but his mind was far from them with his hope and
his formula. He learned in silence, while the ma-
gician bent to the work of making him his pupil and
rendering him worthy of the terrible wisdom that
had been brought down through the ages by the
labour of the Dread Masters. And at last the black
shape of the Master went out of the gloomy room
and Ramon Alonzo was all alone with his hope.
His hope was that the first two syllables were
right, that the quiver in the padlock was its prepara-
tion to open, as the spell thrilled through the brass,
till the final syllable “ab” disappointed its expecta-
tion. He had therefore to try only once the thou-
sands of possible sounds that might make the last
syllable, instead of multiplying them by thousands
more and working on till old age. The magician
would be gone for some hours, returning again in
the afternoon for another weary lesson. Spells
guarded everything round Ramon Alonzo in the
room that was sacred to magic while the magician
was gone; spells, had he known it, could have brought
to life one of the crocodiles when he drew his sword
against magic, and it would have eaten him had the
master not needed a pupil. But Ramon Alonzo
cared only for one spell. He was down at once by
the shadow-box, and this time all the spells that he
tried began with “Ting Yung,” while he changed
every time the last syllable. Once more whenever

RAMON ALONZO DANCES 221

he touched the padlock he felt it quiver as he uttered
the second syllable, while it calmed again as it heard
the end of the spell. He became more and more cer-
tain that he held two-thirds of the secret, and that
hours would free his shadow instead of years. Then,
giving her shadow back to the poor old charwoman,
he would flee from the sinister house, and work in
some simpler way for Mirandola’s dowry, amongst
unlearned folk, and have no more to do with such
as should scorn salvation. The work of those hours
surpassed in patience the labour of many a scholar
studying mathematics, or chess-player analysing
position or opening. Yet, when the Master returned
again, he had tried little more than the syllables
commencing with “b,” and the padlock upon the
shadow-box was shut as fast as ever.

More weary hours passed with the heathen arts
of Persia, Ramon Alonzo thinking all the while of
Heaven, as a boy in school thinks of the green fields.
I would not convey the dullness of those hours.
They passed with the exact speed with which other
hours pass, if measured by those movements of the
Earth by which time is recorded; but, if spiritual
measurements be used, and the hours be marked
by the impatience, longing, and weariness felt by
Ramon Alonzo, by that measurement they passed
slowly. But the impatiences of man have their end-
ings, as each of Earth’s revolutions; and night ar-
rived and the magician left. Whither he went Ra-
mon Alonzo knew not; perhaps to sleep; perhaps,
he thought, to commune across the gulfs with the

222 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

damned. Want of sleep and too much work, far
from wearying Ramon Alonzo, had lit a fever in his
veins that drove him to fierce activity, and he was
down by the shadow-box rapidly uttering spells.
Small winds and faint sounds went by, and the
moths and the owls and the stars; and the mice
went round and round. And midnight came, and
that solitary shape crouching above the shadow-box
had uttered to the padlock all the syllables that
begin with “c? or “d.” No inspiration came to
lighten that labour, but he clung to his formula which
was one long monotony, thousands of phrases that
all began with Ting Yung. He did not look at the
slow changes of night, he scarcely saw the window;
and yet black branches slanted against the stars re-
mained a memory for all his years, and the sight of
branches and stars whenever he saw it afterwards
would always bring to him the weariest thoughts.
His mind was peopled with hopes and disappoint-
ments as the wood was peopled with little hunters
going abroad through the dark; but despair never
caine that night, for he was determined not to admit
despair till the last of the sounds was tried for the
third syllable. The stars paled as with illness; with
intensest weariness, as it seemed to Ramon Alonzo,
the dawn dragged upwards; the voices of the birds »
jarred on his hearing, made delicate by fatigue; and
still he murmured on. To the syllables he had tried
he had added now all beginning with “f” and “g.”
They had gone slower than those beginning with
“d,” because ‘‘d,” as he believed, could not be fol-

RAMON ALONZO DANCES 223

lowed by “1,” which halved the number of sounds
that he had to try. And now came “h” which, as he
hoped, could not be followed either by “P”? or “r.”

Dawn grew wider. Again he felt a hopelessness
at the myriad shapes of matter appearing out of the
darkness, all of them possessing what he lacked so
conspicuously, each master of a shadow and he alone
without one. Now the sun had risen but was
hidden yet by the trees. And all of a sudden the
hasp of the padlock opened. The spell was Ting
Yung Han.

Hastily Ramon Alonzo removed the padlock, and
cautiously opened the box. It was full of shadows.
He closed the box again, as he saw them flutter, and
went to the window to stuff his kerchief into a
broken pane so that they should not escape; then he
returned to the box. Then he opened the lid of the
box a little way and took out a shadow in finger and
thumb by the heels, as he had seen the magician hold
his. This he laid on the floor and put a small jar
upon it, which he took down from a shelf, trust-
ing any piece of matter to hold down so delicate a
thing as a shadow. Then he took out another and
treated it in the same way. Then a third and a
fourth. They were shadows of all kinds of folk,
men and’ women, young and old. The red sun
peeped in and saw the shadowless man laying out
this queer assembly and holding them one by one
with little weights. They did not grow as the red
sun looked at them, for they were masterless and lost.
They lay there grey on the floor, fluttering limply.

224 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

And then, and then, Ramon Alonzo found his own
shadow. He recognized it immediately. He put it
to his heels. The shadow ran to them, and the
instant that it had fastened there, never again, as
Ramon Alonzo swore, to be removed as any fee or
for any bribe whatever, it grew long in the early
morning. At that moment they danced together as
though they had been equal in the sight of matter,
both of them ponderable and tangible things, both of
them having thickness. And indeed for some while
Ramon Alonzo could not feel any of that superior-
ity that matter feels towards shadows; he only felt
that there had been restored to him here the proud
place that humanity holds amongst solid things, and
hereafter salvation: they danced as equals, not as
master and shadow. Round and round the floor
went Ramon Alonzo dancing, and round and round
the walls the shadow pranked behind him. Past
every material shape in that room he went rejoicing
knowing that with whatever dull feeling matter has,
these shapes had scorned him as being less than them,
remembering that he had marked himself their in-
ferior by envying all that had shadows. The fatigue
of the night and his dread had fallen away and he
danced in sheer joy, and a wildness and fantasy
about his leaping shadow seemed to show that it also
had a joy of its own. As he watched its silent leap-
ings following his merry steps, he began to under-
stand how a soul might follow a shadow, as here on
the solid Earth a shadow followed heels. He danced
till a new fatigue overtaking happy muscles, not

RAMON ALONZO DANCES 225

the fatigue of dread and monotony, began to weight
his steps. Then he and his shadow rested. Again
he went to the box, and the very next shadow he
drew from it was the lithe shadow of a slender
girl, with curls that seemed just now shaken by a
sudden turn of the head, which showed in profile
with young lips slightly parted. There was a grace
about this young shadow as though Spring had come
all of a sudden to one that had waited, wondering,
at dawn while her elders slept. A maiden in Spring.
And, as Ramon Alonzo looked long at that delicate
profile, his fancies began to hear bird-song and
distant sheep-bells, and all happy sounds of lost
seasons that had made that wondering look. Who
was she, he wondered, that could be so fair? Where
was she: what fields lent such beauty? He was a
man now, with a shadow. He could face the world.
He need envy nothing among material things. He
would search all Spain for the girl with the curly
shadow. And his thoughts ran on into golden
imagined days.

It was some while before he came back from
those thoughts and remembered his quest and the
promise he gave to the charwoman. He returned
then to the shadow-box; but he would not weight
down the shadow that had the waving curls, and it
floated lightly about the room, while he took more
from the box. The sun was not yet up to the tops
of the trees, but was shining between the trunks
when Ramon Alonzo took out the last of the
shadows. There were shadows of two plump old

226 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

women, there was the sweet curly shadow; all the
rest were the shadows of men. No shadow was there
that could possibly belong to the charwoman.
Before he imprisoned the shadows again in the
box he made sure that he should be able to free them
again. So he shut the box and put the padlock on,
and said the spell to it; and it opened again. He
did this two or three times. Then he picked up the
shadows again in his finger and thumb, and put
them back one by one. Last of all he went up to
that slender curly shadow that was wandering free
round the room, and it ran away from him and he
ran after; but soon he caught it, for it ran no faster
than it had learned to run when it ran at the heels of
a young girl straying along the fields in Spring.
This also he put back into the box, although he wept
to do so. His own shadow only he kept. Then
he fastened the padlock and hastened away from
the room, for there was much to do. He had first
to find the charwoman and to tell her of the failure
of his quest, and to offer her the protection of his
sword wherever she wished to go, if she desired to
flee away from that house: this much he was bound
to do when he could no longer hope to find the
shadow that he had promised to rescue. Next he
must return to the room in which the shadow-box
lay, before the Master came, and wait in the gloom-
iest corner, so that the Master should not see that he
had robbed the box of his shadow. And then he
must part from the Master upon such terms that he
could return to his house one happy day, when he

RAMON ALONZO DANCES 227

had found the girl that had lost the curly shadow.
This shadow he meant to rescue and give to her, and
so to restore to her her lawful place among material
things, and to marry her and forsake magic for ever.
But his sword was still in the service of the char-
woman, and already he had planned another quest;
and he had not yet escaped from that house. Were
the magician to see his shadow before he went, or to
go to the shadow-box and find it missing, it was
unlikely that any of his impetuous plans or golden
hopes of youth would ever come to fulfilment. He
would perish upon that red flash of lightning, or
under some frightful spell, and the Master would
have his fee.

He ran to find the charwoman. Morning grew
older with every step that he took, and brought the
hour nearer when he must meet the magician; he
came all out of breath to the nook where the old
woman lived with her pails.

“Anemone,” he said, “I have opened the shadow-
box.” There was a sudden catch in her breath.
“Tt is not there,” he said.

‘Was it the shadow-box?” she asked.

“Ves” he said. “Look. I have found my
shadow. But yours, it was not there.”

She looked, and more joy came into her face at
the sight of his rescued shadow than he had ever
seen there before. He told her how his false shadow
was lost and how he had found his true one. He
told her of the other shadows that he had found in
the box, he described the shadows of the two plump

228 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

old women that could not have belonged to Anemone,
he described the young slender shadow a little shyly,
saying little at first; but some kind of power the
charwoman seemed to have, though she scarcely
spoke, made him tell more and more; and soon his
love of the shadow with blown curls and slightly
parted lips became transparent.

“But your shadow was not there,” he said, “and
I can never find it now; but if you will flee at once
away from this house you shall have my sword to
protect you instead of your shadow, to whatever
place that you may wish to go.”

She pushed some straw together into a heap.

“Sit down,” she said.

CHAPTER XXV
THE RELEASE OF THE SHADOW

T ONG ago,” said the charwoman, “a long long

while ago, I dwelt in my father’s cottage in
Aragona. I had naught to do in all those sunny
days but to tend his garden, or sing; unless in win-
ter I sometimes fetched pails of water for my mother
from the stream if the well in our garden were
frozen. I think the days of those summers were
sunnier than those we have now, and the Springs
were more sudden and joyous; and I remember
a glory about the woods in autumn, aye, and a splen-
dour about those winter evenings, that I have not
seen, ah me, this many a year. So, having naught
else to do, I grew in beautiful seasons and breathed
and saw loveliness, and through no merit of mine,
but only through borrowing in all idleness of Goď’s
munificence through listless years, I grew beautiful.
Yes, young man,” for some expression must have
changed on the youth’s face, “charwomen were
beautiful once.

“I had not loved, for of those that came some-
times with guitars at twilight, and played them near

229

230 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

our garden, none had a splendour fairer than my
day-dreams, and they were of Aragona.

“There came a most strange man at evening,
when I was seventeen, all down the slope from the
wood, walking alone. I remember his red cloak
now, and his curious hat and his venerable air. He
came to our village on that summer’s day at the
time that bats were flying. At the edge of our gar-
den he stopped—I saw through my window—and
drew a flute or pipe from under his cloak and blew
one note upon it. My father came running out at
that strange sound, and saw the man and doffed his
hat to him, for he had a wonderful air, and asked
him what he needed. And the Master said, aye it
was he, the crafty magician said that he wished for
a charwoman, some girl that would mind the things
in his house in the wood. My father should have
said there was no such girl in his house. But he
talked; and then my mother came out; and then
they talked again. I know not how he satisfied
them, but he had a wonderful air. There are just
men with far less a presence. They were poor and
looked for work for me, and gold to him was ever
stuff to be given by handfuls uncounted; yet I know
not how he satisfied them.

“My mother called to me and told me I was to
go away with the señor to work for him in his
great house in the wood, and he would pay me
beyond my expectations, and soon I should come
back to Aragona, a girl with a fine dowry. Aye,
he paid me beyond my expectations; but I never

THE RELEASE OF THE SHADOW 231

came back, I never came back. I tried to once but
they would not let me.

“He would not wait. I must pack my bundle at
once. So I did as I was bade, and said farewell to
my parents, and went away after the stranger
through the evening. I turned my head as I went
beyond the garden and saw my mother looking
doubtfully after me; but she did not call me back.
I was all sad walking alone after this strange man
in the evening, thinking of Aragona. And then
without looking round at me he drew out a reed
from his cloak and blew another note upon it; and
all the world seemed strange, and the evening seemed
haunted and wonderful, and I forgot Aragona. I
walked after him thrilled with the wonders that that
one note seemed to have called from the furthest
boundaries of wizardry. They seemed to be lurk-
ing just over the ridges of hills and the other side
of wild bushes, things come from elfland and fancy
to hear what tune he would play. But he played no
more. And so he brought me to his house in the
wood.

“Ah, I had eyes then not like these, not like dim
pools in rain: they could flash, they were like the
colour of lakes with the sunlight on them in summer.
I had small white teeth, yes I. And I had little
golden curls, I loved my curls; God wot it was not
this hair. My figure was slender then, and straight -
and supple. And my face. Young man, it was not
these wrinkled hollows!”

Ramon Alonzo stirred uneasily. Who will be-

232 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

lieve in a beauty he cannot see? Withered in-
firmity claims pity, and he had given it her to the
full. But beauty demands love. Could he give that
to a legend of beauty, to an old woman’s tale? He
felt that silence were best. He could have pitied
her more deeply without this sorry claim. Words
could not build again a beauty that was gone. He
patted her hand a little clumsily, where it lay all
veins and hollows upon the straw. “Yes, yes,” he
said. “All passes. I make no doubt you were
fair.”

And she saw that she had explained nothing to
him.

“It was then,” she said, with a sudden flash in
those old eyes, “then that he took my shadow.”

Ramon Alonzo knew from that look and. that
voice that he was being told a thing of strange im-
port, before he understood anything else. He gazed
at the charwoman and she nodded to him, and still
he understood nothing. And all of a sudden he
shouted, “The beautiful shadow!’ And she went on
nodding her head.

The morning was growing late. At any moment
he might appear whom they dreaded. He leaped
up and ran to the room that was sacred to magic.
Once more he bent over the shadow-box. Once
more the spell. The padlock opened again and he
found the charwoman’s shadow. The rest he left
locked in the box, and carried the lovely young
shadow gently to the old charwoman.

For all the haste that was urgent he carried the

I

THE RELEASE OF THE SHADOW 233

shadow slowly; for friendship and his knightly
quest demanded that he should give it to the old
woman; and as soon as this was done his love must
be over. For he knew well enough that shadow and
substance must be alike, and that an old charwoman
could never cast the shadow of a lithe and lovely
girl. He looked at that glad profile and those curls
as he walked, murmuring farewells to them. For
he had loved this shadow from the moment he saw
it, as he had loved no mortal girl. It was that earliest
love at which elders sometimes laugh, prophesying
that it will pass. But now, thought Ramon Alonzo,
it must pass for ever, taking a glory out of his life
and leaving all grey. He did not reason that he
had only loved for an hour; he did not reason that
his love was given to a mere shadow; he did not
reason at all. But a grief as profound as the ar-
gument of the wisest of elders was settling on him,
and not an argument could have removed its weight.

A little while ago he had planned a future in
which he should wander through Spain, seeking
always for the girl that had lost that shadow; and
now that the girl was gone the future seemed empty.

He came to the dingy haunt of brooms and pans
where the charwoman sat on straw, and stood still
and looked long at the shadow.

How long he stood there he knew not. There
are loves that are each one the romance of a lifetime.
Such a love must illumine the whole of a man’s mem-
ories and light up all his years. It goes down time
like lightning through the air. The length of it in

234 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

hours is not to be measured. How long he stood
there he knew not.

Then he went to the charwoman. “Your
shadow,” he said.

If consolation had been possible to him the joy
he had brought to the old woman’s face might have
indeed consoled him.

“Yes,” she said, “that is my shadow.”

And she spoke all hushed as people sometimes do
watching rare sunsets, or about the graves of youth-
ful heroes too long dead for grief.

And then she would have fondled it and patted
its curls, but drew back her hand ere she did so, for
it would have clung to her and she did not wish to
take it there. So they stood there looking at it a
while longer as it lay on the young man’s arm;
and the moments on which their lives depended went
wasting away, for the footsteps of the magician
tapped faintly in a far corridor: he was about, and
they did not hear him.

“You were most lovely once,” said Ramon Alonzo.

“Aye,” she said smiling, and gazing still at the
shadow.

“Take your shadow,” he said curtly, after one
sigh.

And at that moment she heard the steps of the
magician plainly coming towards them.

“He is coming here,” she cried.

Ramon Alonzo listened. It was clearly so. And
then he remembered his kerchief that he had left —

THE RELEASE OF THE SHADOW 235

in the pane in the room that was sacred to magic.
After that they spoke in whispers.

Nearer and nearer came the steps in the corridor;
the magician was between them and the door to
the wood. Ramon Alonzo stepped hastily towards
the old woman, the shadow outstretched to her.
“No, no,” she whispered, “he must not see.”

“It is dark in this corner,” he said, pointing.

“No, no,” she said, “we must flee.”

They fled down the corridor away from the door
to the wood, and the magician came slowly after
them. They tried to guess from his footsteps how
much he suspected. They wondered how much their
flight had increased his suspicions. They wondered
what weapon he carried, whether of Earth or Here-
after, whether a blade to sunder mortal flesh or one
deadly to shadows. They feared a wound that
might end all earthly hopes, or a stroke that might
rip their shadows clean away from salvation, leaving
their helpless souls to share the doom of their
shadows. The house was full of fears.

They ran on, Ramon Alonzo still holding the
curly shadow, and heard the magician plodding after
them. Did he suspect or know? Had he had time
at that early hour to open his shadow-box and ex-
amine all his shadows? If so, he knew. But if at
that hour he had just entered his room, seen the ker-
chief and looked for Ramon Alonzo at once, then
he only suspected. Yet his suspicions were often as
shrewd as mortal calculations. Thoughts like these

236 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

went through their minds more swiftly than they
ran.

When the magical footsteps were now some way
behind them the old woman pulled Ramon Alonzo
suddenly sideways, and they huddled or fell past two
loose planks in the wall to a cranny behind the wain-
scot. She had known of this place for years. Rats,
damp, and wood-worm, and other servants of time,
had gradually made it larger. There was just room
for the two to hide there. They lay there waiting
while the steps came nearer ; and all the while Ramon
Alonzo held the shadow, though it fluttered to come
to the charwoman. Somehow she stifled her breath-
ing, though she had been nearly gasping; and the
steps drew near and passed. That he was looking for
them they could not doubt, but they felt as he passed
so near that he had not learned as yet of the open-
ing of his shadow-box. For he was muttering ques-
tioningly to himself as he went: “Ramon Alonzo?
Ramon Alonzo?”

The charwoman held the young man by the wrist,
and listened, as she held him, to the footsteps going
away.

“Now,” she said suddenly.

They rose in cautious silence, though one of the
timbers creaked ; they left the mouldering nook and
tiptoed away; they heard the magician turn and
come back down the corridor; and then they were
running for the door to the wood.

The magician had quickened his steps, but they
reached the door in time; and were out into the

THE RELEASE OF THE SHADOW 237

wood before they saw him, though they often looked
over their shoulders. They ran through the wood
not only to avoid his pursuit, but to be as far away
as they could before he used his enchantments, for
both of them feared that as soon as he found they
were gone he would go to his sinister room and take
from a spell-locked box some potent weapon of
wizardry and loosen its deadly power towards the
wood. And they did well to run, though they did
not know, as those know who have studied the
science of magic, that the power of any spell or en-
chantment lessens according to the square of the
_ distance.

= And the magician never caught them either with
weapon or spell, but they ran on safe through the
wood; and at the edge of it in the wholesome sun-
light, which, more than anything else yet known
to science, arrests the passage of spells, the old
woman sank on to the grass exhausted.

CHAPTER XXVI
THE WONDERFUL CASTING

| bees felt that they were safe in that honest sun-
light. And Ramon Alonzo, sitting near the
old crone while she rested, looked longingly at that
young and delicate shadow which he had not thought
to see for so long as this. He held it still in his
hands, but now the time was come to give it up, for
his old companion was shadowless, and to this he
had pledged her his word. He must give it up to
take a wizened shape; for shadow and substance
must be alike in outline, as all the world knows. He
must give it up and end his love-story that was
not three hours old. He would see that profile
change; he would see those curls scatter to thin
wisps; he would lead the old woman back to her
Aragona; and then go forth alone to join the forlorn
companionage, that he felt sure there must some-
where be, of men that had loved a shadow. Mean-
while the old woman rested; she could spare him
a little longer that shadow on which all his young
dreams were builded, dreams that he knew, as youth
so seldom knows, would soon come tottering down.

238

THE WONDERFUL CASTING 239

He turned from dark thoughts of his future
to think of hers. What would the old thing do,
back in a world again that had gone so far with-
out her? Her parents would be dead, who knew
how long? None would know her in Aragona.
How would she fare there?

He turned to her to make again that offer that he
had made once before. “If ever you weary of
Aragona,” he said.

“Ah, Aragona,” she interrupted. ‘How could
one weary of it?”

“Tf you wish for a warm house,” he said, “for
light work, for little comforts, I know my father
will give you employment.”

Again that strange smile that he had seen amongst
her old wrinkles when he had offered this before.
He had intended to say much of his home; telling
of the comfort of it, its quaint old nooks, its pleas-
ant rooms, the mellow air about it; and how a char-
woman might saunter there with none to vex her,
dusting old tapestries slowly and resting when she
would, doing easy work to keep just ahead of the
spider, dusting as quietly and leisurely as he spun, till
the rays came in all red through the western win-
dows; sitting and watching then the faces of olden
heroes reddening to life in the rays, and all the tapes-
tries wakening in the sun’s moment of magic. No,
he would not have used that word, for she was
weary of magic. He would have spoken of the
sun’s benediction, which truly those rays would
have been, on that old face in the evening in the

240 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

happy quiet of his home. But his words all halted
before that smile, and he said no more at all.

“Then I will take you to Aragona,” he said after
a while.

“As you will,” she said.

He did not understand such listless words about
her loved Aragona; he did not understand her smile.
But she was more rested now; the end was near;
she must have back her shadow. He gazed again at
the young curly head, the happy lips and slender
shape of that sweet shadow; then looking up he
saw that the end which was near was now. For a
man was coming towards them along a track that
wound across the hill outside the wood, driving be-
fore him a donkey that bore a green heap of mer-
chandise. If Ramon Alonzo waited any longer to
fulfil his knightly word the man would see she was
shadowless.

He sighed once.

“T pray you stand up,” he said.

He stood up himself.

She arose without a word, and stood as he said,
a calm, serene over her agitation, as the calm of
lakes that freeze amongst the mountains in the midst
of winter’s violence. Then he carried the shadow
to her and kneeled down on the grass near her heels.
He turned his back to her as he laid the shadow
down, to look his last on the form that he so much
loved, before it should be a shadow cast by a sub-
stance on which time had wrought its worst. He
knew that from these last moments there is nothing

THE WONDERFUL CASTING 241

to be had but sorrow, and that it were better to
have turned away towards the charwoman, looking,
at it were, time full in the face. Yet he gazed long
at the shadow. And now the shadow was to the
charwoman’s heels. It slanted a few degrees to its
left, to be right with the sun: the lines of its cloth-
ing fluttered a little. But his eyes were only on
the merry head, to see the last of the curls. Still
the curls crinkled there; still the lips parted in won-
der. He kneeled gazing there silent and motionless,
as a prophet might kneel and listen before a reve-
lation, whose words were dying away. And still
the shadow had not taken the shape of the old sub-
stance that cast it.

Then he heard a soft laugh behind him; and its
tones were akin, if there be any meaning in tones
and any speech in mere merriment, to the tones of
streams to which Spring has suddenly come, rush-
ing down Alpine valleys, unknown as yet to the vio-
lets, and unbound them from months of ice. And
the shadow, the young shadow with wondering lips,
responded. It was the shadow of one that laughed
under swinging curls.

And as he gazed, as lost mariners gaze at sails, he
saw the little curls move backwards and forwards,
and the parted lips shut. Still he waited for the
change that he dreaded; still no change came. And
a wonder came on him greater even than his un-
happiness. How could this thing be? How could a
withered substance cast such a shadow? Again that
low laugh.

242 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

He looked round then and saw her, saw the form
that cast that shadow, saw the young girl he loved;
for the shadow was stronger than the magician’s
gift. That weary immortality was gone; and the
ravages of those years that magic had given had all
fallen away; wrinkles and lank hair were gone at
the touch of the shadow; for, although weaker than
all material things, yet, amongst spiritual things
and the things that war against them, the shadow,
for the sake of its shape and its visibility, is ac-
counted as substance; and it was stronger than
magic. She had had magical years for a shadow:
now the shadow was back and the evil bargain over,
and the work of all those dark years was brushed
away at the sudden touch of reality; for the shadow
was real and had its rightful place amongst our
daily realities, while magic was but the mustering of
the powers that are in illusion.

Ramon Alonzo wondered to see substance taking
the shape of a shadow, for he had become so ac-
customed to the withered shape that magical years
had fastened upon the charwoman that he thought
it her own true shape. But her true shape was
laughing gently at his wonder, with blue eyes, in
the sun, while golden curls were bobbing with her
laughter. One wistful look she took at her fair
young shadow, and her laughter ceased as she looked
on it; then those blue eyes turned again to Ramon
Alonzo, and Anemone smiled again.

“Well?” she said.

“Did you know?” were his first words to her.

THE WONDERFUL CASTING 243

“Ves,” she answered.

“How?” said he.

“By the long time I have lived with magic,” she
answered ruefully.

“Can magic come and go like this?” he asked.

“That is the way of it,” she said.

And still he could hardly believe what he saw
with his eyes.

“The bargain is over,” she said, “and my shadow
is back.”

“But your shadow is casting a body,” he said in
amazement, “not your body a shadow.”

“Tt was only a shape of illusion, that body,” she
said.

“But you? Where were you?” he said.

“Tt was not my true self,” she said slowly.

He asked her more of this wonder, but she
answered more slowly still, and with confused
words and fatigue of mind. She was forgetting.

The dark house, the magician, the evil bargain,
the long long corridors, and the peril of soul, were
all slipping away towards oblivion, after those lank
wisps of hair and the long deep wrinkles. Her
efforts to recall them became harder and harder ;
and soon the flowers, the gleaming grass-blades, the
butterflies, or any youthful whim, turned her so
easily away from effort that Ramon Alonzo saw he
would learn no more from her about the ways of il-
lusion, and perhaps never quite understand the power
that shadows held amongst shapeless invisible forces
such as magic. And while her memories of magic

244 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

waned his own interest in the things of illusion was
waning too, for he had found the one true illusion;
and in the light of love all other illusions were fad-
ing out of his view; aye, and substantial things, for
the man and his donkey passed by them, and the
high load of green merchandise, and neither Anem-
one nor Ramon Alonzo saw anyone go by, or any
donkey or merchandise, and though they answered
the greeting that the man gave to them, they did
not know they had answered. But in a haze that
was made of golden sunlight and many imagined
things, and that moved with them and shut them
from what we call the world, they wandered to-
gether slowly away from the wood.

CHAPTER XXVII

THEY DREAD THAT A WITCH HAS RIDDEN FROM THE
COUNTRY BEYOND MOON’S RISING

S Ramon Alonzo and Anemone wandered away
from the wood her memories of pails and old

age and the magical house dwindled faster, and she
seemed even younger than her face amongst its
little curls, and that was the face of a girl of seven-
teen. Often she glanced at her shadow to see if it
was there, prompted by some dark memory like the
fears that frighten children, but when she saw it
going lightly with her light steps over the grass and
small leaves she laughed to see it and forgot the
memory. At such moments Ramon Alonzo tried to
comfort her for those dark ages that she had known
and all those wasted years, telling her that the future
and years of his love should repay her; but more
and more as they wandered away from the wood he
noticed that talk of the past would puzzle her. She
would listen attentively as though trying to remem-
ber or trying to understand, and then she would sud-
denly laugh to see a butterfly scared at her shadow,
or to see the glint of a flower change as her shadow
went over it. Then she would go grave again when

245

246 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

she saw the grave face of Ramon Alonzo offering
her sympathy for all she had suffered; and,
puckering her forehead, she would half remember
and half understand until she saw a lizard run in
the leaves, or a young goat leaping, then all the
memory she had of those dark years would go again.
So he spoke only of the present and his love, and
of the future and how his love would endure, and
how it would be with her still in old age to shield her
latest years from any sorrow. To this she listened,
though when they spoke of old age it seemed to both
of them like the ending of a story often told, and
even pleasant to hear, but not wholly true. This
defeat of invincible youth on a distant day was no
more to them than is the thought of defeat to the
men of a great army just fresh from their first
victory.

Far into the future the radiance of that day shone
for them, from where they walked on the hill-side
hand-in-hand in the morning, till all the years to
be seemed to shimmer and glow in the gold of it,
as though shafts of that one day’s sunlight could
flash across all time. And even backwards its splen-
dour seemed to pierce the mist of the past, casting a
glow far off even on years that were gone; but the
past, to Anemone, lay in Aragona and not in the
dark house. Across a gulf of time that she could
not measure, gardens and cottages of Aragona now
glowed with a brighter light for her because of the
radiance of one wonderful morning. They spoke
awhile of those gardens and those cottages, Ramon

THEY DREAD A WITCH 247

Alonzo’s swift fancies racing back through the
years from far dreams of the future to hear of
` them; for all ways that were ever trod by Anem-
one were to him enchanted paths, because they
had brought her at last to him. She told of her
early days, of her childhood that should have been
yesterday, but that magic had separated from her by
a bleak waste of years; and now her memories flitted
across those years not knowing how many they
were, as the swallows come back to us over leagues
of sea, straight to their own eaves. And as she
told of that old home of her memories, a cottage-
garden at twilight in Aragona, the sky all haunted
by the hint of some colour too marvellous to tarry
till we can name it, but caught and held in her mem-
ory, the flowers shining softly with a faint glow of
their own, the voices of children playing who must
all long since be dead, the air trembling towards
starlight; bells and their mellow echoes; faint notes
of a lonely far music; as she told he lifted his gaze
for a moment away from her lips, and saw, though
dazzled a little by the shining gold of her curls, saw
Aragona.

This was not the Aragona of her memories, in
which every flower welcomed him to come and walk
in her garden, and every soft song called him to
share old joys of her childhood: it was the Ara-
gona in which night and day men watched with
swords at their sides for the man with the bad
shadow. And Ramon Alonzo saw that he must
look into the future, to pick difficult paths, that

248 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

would not be lit by any light shining from day-
dreams. Immediately before him lay Aragona; and
what after that? Would his father receive Anem-
one? He thought of her fair young face, her
delicate curls, the rippling light of her eyes, her fairy
figure, her merry childish ways rejoicing in girl-
hood, to which she had returned after such wan-
derings: day-dreams all; his father would not see
her as Ramon Alonzo saw. Then he thought of
soberer things more reasonably. His father was
going to marry Mirandola, with those lightning eyes
under that stormy hair, to the neighbour, Señor
Gulvarez. If they asked where Anemone came from,
she too was a neighbour. If they asked who she
was, who was Gulvarez? And if Anemone were
unknown, was that not better than to be known as
Gulvarez was known, a gross mean man that had
excellent pigs, but not himself excellent? So Ramon
Alonzo argued, and I give the theme of his argu-
ment, considering it worthy thus to be handed
down the ages, not for any intrinsic brilliance in the
logic, but because it was remarkable that out of that
glittering day-dream, that was lulling him and Anem-
one from all the cares of the world, he was able
to awake to argue at all.

Then he told Anemone of his father’s house, and
how they would marry there and be happy for ever
after, and of the welcome that his father would
give her. And in his vision of their future there,
long languid days of summer and beautiful spring-
times, and October suns huge, red and mysterious

THEY DREAD A WITCH 249

through haze, and gorgeous fires in winter and
hunted boars brought home, all blended to build one
glory. He told of his mother and Mirandola, and
Father Joseph and Peter, and the great dog that he
loved, who, as he believed, could have killed a boar
alone. A little he told her of hunts that he had had,
but told not much of the past, because it seemed to
him so bleak when compared with their future. Of
the future he told in all its magnificence and so came
back to his day-dreams. Once she questioned him
about his father’s welcome, but his faith in Gulvarez
had grown since first he had thought of him, and
Gulvarez presided now over all that situation: his
father, he said, would surely welcome her. Yet
her question brought him back again to the things
that are outside day-dreams. They had come nearer
Aragona now, and its walls shone bright at noon,
but with none of the light that shines from happy
dreams. Now they must plan. Whither their steps?
Aragona first, said Anemone. And then the Tower,
said Ramon Alonzo: they could be there that eve-
ning. But Anemone besought him for some days
at Aragona, now that she had come back to it after
all that mist of years, that seemed banked up, im-
penetrable to her memory, although over them all
shone clear the roofs of the old Aragona.

“But in what house?” he asked.

She knew not.

“With whom?”

She cared not.

250 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

Aragona, Aragona; the memory of it was in her
mind like bells, and she besought some days there.

Then he told her how men waited there for
the man with the bad shadow, because of what had
happened there on the hill at evening. And he
drew his sword as they went towards the village.
She laid her hand on the arm that held the sword
and made him put it up.

“Not now,” she said. ‘We will go in the eve-
ning late, when shadows are long. And they shall
see that your shadow can grow and is as good a
shadow as any Christian man’s. Aye, and better;
and better. Look at it now on the flowers. Who
has a shadow to equal it? And at evening it shall
be beautiful, dark and long; and who’ll dare speak
of it except in envy?”

And this seemed wise to him, for he could not be-
lieve that any prejudice against a man on account
of a short shadow could remain when he had a long
shadow for everyone to see. So he praised Anem-
one’s plan and said they would wait. But preju-
dices die slowly, as they were to find out that eve-
ning.

And on the bright hill-side they waited, spending
the shining hours in happy talk. They had neither
food nor water; they had fled too swiftly to have
brought provisions away from the house in the
wood. But it was the time of year when pome-
granates ripen, and a grove of these was near them;
and the pomegranates were food and drink to them.
Sitting amongst the flowers their talk went on all

THEY DREAD A WITCH 251

through the afternoon. There is no memory of
what they said. The sound just came to them, from
the limits of hearing, of bees in a tall lime; swift
insects flashed across the yellow sunlight with sud-
den streaks of silver; butterflies rested near them,
all motionless, showing their splendours; a wind
sighed up out of Africa to turn the leaves of a tree;
children a long way off called across bright fields
to their comrades; the flowers sparkled, and drank
the sunlight in; their talk was part of the joy with
which Earth greeted the sun.

But when rays slanted and shadows crept afield,
and more and more appeared where there had been
only sunlight, till multitudes of them were gathered
upon the hill, and they seemed to possess the land-
scape more than the rocks on trees, and Earth
seemed populated chiefly with shadows, and even
destined for them; then Ramon Alonzo and Anem-
one, hand in hand, their two dark shadows stretch-
ing long behind them, walked confidently into Ara-
gona.

And those who watched espied them. Then bells
were rung and men ran out of houses, and there were
shouts and musterings; and the murmur arose of a
crowd in its agitation, and above the murmur one
phrase loud and often: “For the Faith. For the
Pati

Ramon Alonzo drew near them with Anemone,
thinking to satisfy them with the sight of his long
shadow, but when they saw it they only cried,
“Magic. Magic.” For, having come out from

252 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

their houses to look for a false shadow, they would
not recognize a true one though it lay there for all
to see.

Again Ramon Alonzo drew his sword. With-
out a ring it came from the scabbard and was all
leaden to look on and tarnished, not like the bright
swords flashing here and there in the crowd, for
it had been dulled and disenchanted when it had
crossed the lightning-stroke in the hand of the Mas-
ter. Then Anemone stepped forward before Ramon
Alonzo and raised her voice above the sound of the
bells and the cry of the crowd for the Faith, till
they all stood silent and listened, halted by her
bright vehemence.

“No magic,” she said, “no magic; but a young
man’s shadow. Watch, and you shall see it grow, |
as it hath grown ever since noon. See it now fair
and shapely. Can magic do this? Who hath a
longer shadow? Who hath a shapelier? See how
the daisies rest in it. I know what magic can do,
but this never.”

And one lifted his voice from the silence that
lulled them all, as with one arm high she spoke her
speech in their faces; he lifted his voice and said:
“What is this stranger?”

Then all who had listened to her looked at her
strangely and noted that many times she had used
the word magic. What was she? Magic too, may-
be. And a fear fell on them all.

“Aye,” said another, with more in his voice than
the first, “what stranger is she?”

THEY DREAD A WITCH 253

They thought that voice, those questions, and all
their looks, had quelled her. But she flashed a look
at them and spoke again with irresistible voice.

“Stranger?” she said, “stranger? I am of Ara-
gona, I!”

And an elder peered at her awhile and slowly
said: “You know not Aragona.”

“Aye,” she said, “every lane of it.”

“Maybe the roadway,” the elder said, “and our
notable belfry, but the small lanes never.”

“Aye, every lane,” said Anemone.

“Easily said,” cried another.

And one said: “Let her tell us tales of it. Let
her tell us of this Aragona that she has known.”

And Ramon Alonzo, behind her with his sword
yet in his hand, would have stopped them, for he
feared that the Aragona she knew would be all
faded away, and that, telling of olden things that to
her were dearest, she would bring upon her their
derision. So he tried to turn them but they did not
hear him, and all were crying out: “Tell us what
you found when you travelled to Aragona.” And
they made pretence that Aragona was some far town
that they knew not.

Then she raised her hand and hushed them and
spoke low, and told of Aragona. She told not of
things that change when old men die, or when chil-
dren grow and leave gardens, but she told of things
that abide or alter slowly, even now when time has
a harsher way with villages. She told of yew-trees,
she told of the older graves, she told of the wander-

254 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

ing lanes that had no purpose, with never a reason
for one of their curves and no reason for altering
them, she told the place of the haystack in many
fields, she told old legends concerning the shape of
the hills and the lore that guided the sower. She
crooned it to them with her love of those fields vi-
brating through every phrase, fields that had shone
for her across the bleakness of unremembered years.
She told them their pedigrees; quaint names to
them in faded ink on old scrolls in their houses; but
she knew with whom their grandfathers went a-
maying. She told and perforce they listened, held
by her love of those fields. And when she ceased
crooning the last word to them, that told of some old
stone there was on a hill, when the last sound died
away like a song that fades softly, a low hum rose
in the crowd from wondering voices. She stood
there silent while the hum roamed up and down and
back again.

Then one spoke clear and said: “She is a witch-
woman, for none knows her here; and hath seen our
village upon starry nights riding by broom from the
Country Beyond Moon’s Rising.”

“Aye,” said the others, speaking deep in awe.
“She is from that land.”

And they opened their eyes a little wider, looking
towards her in horror; for that land lies not only
beyond salvation, but the dooms of the Last Judg-
ment cross not its borders either, so that those who
have trafficked in magic and known the Black Art
walk abroad there boldly, unpunished; a most dread-

THEY DREAD A WITCH 255

ful sight. Only they must come to it before ever
they die; for then it is too late.

“No,” she said, “not from the Country Beyond
Moon’s Rising.”

“Whence then?” said they.

And again she said: “Aragona.”

And one asked her, “What house?”

She pointed to it where one window had flashed
and blazed at the sunset; but now the shadow of the
hill went over it and someone lit a candle then and
placed it in the window.

“There,” she said. And no more words than
this came to her lips.

“Tt is empty,” they shouted.

“And hath been for years,” said one

“The candle,” she said.

“An old custom,” one answered. “It is clear
that you know not Aragona.”

“No,” she said, “I know not that custom.”

“A girl lived there in the old time,” one told
her, “and left it, and came not back.”

“And the candle?” she said.

“The folk that dwelt there put it there all their
days, lest she should come back,” he said.

“And after?’ asked Anemone.

“They left money by testament, as all men know,
for a candle to be lit there always at sunset. The
money is long since spent, but we keep the cus-
tom.”

Aye, they waited for her yet. Then she looked
long and saw how the thatch had sagged, and doors

256 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

and windows were gone except that one window,
and it was indeed as they said: the house was empty
and had long been so.

There was a hush to see what she would do; all
the crowd waited; Ramon Alonzo stood there with
his sword to defend her: none stirred.

They waited for her yet. And how could she
claim to be the one that legend expected? A tale
for a winter’s night, with none to doubt it of those
that warmed at the fire. But in the open air, with
the sun still over the sky-line, who would believe
her? And how tell of the long black years without
speaking of magic?

A long long look she took at that tumbled cot-
tage, then turned away and touched Ramon Alonzo’s
arm.

“Come,” she said.

They went back to the hill and none followed.
But they set guards about the boundaries of Ara-
gona lest he or she should return to corrupt them
with magic.

For a while he did not speak, seeing her sorrow.
But when voices hummed far behind them, their
accusations blurred and harmless with distance, and
he saw that none pursued, he turned to Anemone.
“Where now?” he said.

And Anemone answered, “I know not.”

“Then to my home,” said he.

And at these words she smiled, for they came to
her thoughts like lights to a dark chamber. The
past: was all gone, but there was still the future.

`

THEY DREAD A WITCH 257

She let him guide her whither he would; and he
made a wide circle about Aragona, and then walked
towards his home. The sunset faded and a star
came out, and peered at them; others stole out and
watched them, and still they strode on swiftly
through the night.

Anemone spoke little, for she was troubled about
the future. What if it should crumble like the
past? What if the parents of this splendid
young man should refuse to receive one whose natal
house was mouldering walls under a sagging roof
that was more moss than thatch, upon which oats
were growing.

Only once she spoke of this on their walk through
the dark. But he, thinking yet of Gulvarez,
answered so certainly that his father would receive
her that she feared so great assurance to be un-
reasoning; for she knew nothing of the mean gross
man that the Lord of the Tower was to receive as a
son-in-law.

The stars that had come out earliest beckoned
quietly to others as soon as they saw that pair, and
the others came up hastily, and all that peering mul-
titude all night long saw Ramon Alonzo and Anem-
one walking, till the lustre went out of their watch-
ing and they all faded away.

In the paleness of morning the young man saw
his home lifting a gable above the dark of the forest.
He did not tell Anemone what it was, for there was
a certain spot from which he wished her to see it
first, because from there he believed that the Tower

258 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

looked fairest. But he told her that they were very
near his home, for he saw that she was weary. Be-
fore they came to that spot from which he wished
her to see the Tower, they saw a man coming to-
wards them. It was too far to see his face; yet at
the first glance Ramon Alonzo thought of Peter,
though it was not ever his wont to be up so early
and he had no cause to be going by that road. Then
he watched awhile to see who it could be. Peter
it was. And with a letter for Ramon Alonzo that
his father had written overnight.

“T started full early,” said Peter.

Ramon Alonzo took the letter, while Peter’s eyes
drank in the sight of his young master; then he
looked at Anemone and saw how it was, and said
nothing.

“My lady,” said Ramon Alonzo to Peter, looking
up from his letter.

And Peter went down on one knee in the road
and kissed Anemone’s hand. And this first greet-
ing that she had from the Tower, an omen full of
good fortune, heartened Anemone for a fleeting in-
stant. Then she turned to Ramon Alonzo, and saw
him reading the letter with great astonishment. At
first the news, however strange, seemed good: she
could not read the parchment, yet this she read clear
in the face of Ramon Alonzo. But then the tenour
of the letter changed, and she saw him read the end
with troubled anxiety.

CHAPTER XXVIII

GONSALVO SINGS WHAT HAD BEEN THE LATEST AIR
FROM PROVENCE

HUS it came about that the Lord of the Tower
sent again for Father Joseph, and bade him
write him a letter; and the letter was folded and
sealed and given to Peter to bear to Ramon Alonzo
at the magical house in the wood.

On the day that Father Joseph had left ithe
Tower to go to his own small house the Duke lay in
his bed all day very restless. It was the third day
of his strange illness. Whenever a step was heard
outside his room he watched his door with a fierce-
ness alight in his eyes which only faded from them
when he saw Mirandola. He seldom spoke to her,
but he could not curse her ; he accepted the food that
she brought him, and none else ventured near him.
And so that day went by and the evening came, and
Gulvarez in the room where the boar-spears hung
took an old guitar of his host’s, that years and years
ago Gonsalvo had played; and striking up a tune
Gulvarez sang. And the tune was one that so long
haunted valleys of Andalusian hills that none knew
who first sang it or whence it came. It was a

259

260 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

common love-song of the South. The words were
vague, and varied in different villages, so that a lover
had wide choice how he would sing the song. Gul-
varez sang it with a heavy feeling, looking towards
Mirandola and singing all the tenderer lines the
loudest. When he had finished his hostess thanked
him, and Gonsalvo began to tell of old songs that
he too had known, but his lady checked him that
Mirandola might speak; and they both sat silent,
waiting for their daughter to thank Gulvarez.

Then Mirandola said: “’Tis a pleasant song. I
pray the Saints that the Duke hear it not.”

She said it with such an awe that alarm touched
Gulvarez.

“The Duke?” he stuttered.

“Yes, I pray he hear not,” she said. “For he
hath a most strange fury, and small sounds trouble
it much. I fear lest he should rise from his bed
and slay you.”

And she listened, even as she spoke, to hear if the
Duke were stirring. And Gulvarez grew red and
said: “Not at all,” and “By no means”; and the
Lady of the Tower said “Mirandola!” and the Lord
of the Tower knew not what to say.

And a silence fell and Gulvarez still glowed red,
like a misty autumnal sun in a still evening. And
only Mirandola was quite at ease.

At last to break that silence Gonsalvo sang a
merry love-song that in his own young days was
newly come from Provence. Only those had known
it then who kept an ear to what was doing in the

GONSALVO SINGS 261

wider world beyond the boundaries of Spain, and
who watched the times and were quick to note when-
ever they brought a new thing; and of these Gon-
salvo was one; and so he had got that song, no
great while after its arrival in Spain (brought over
the Pyrenees by a wandering singer, as birds some-
times carry strange seeds), but the song was old
among the troubadours. As Gonsalvo sang he
thought of the days when it was something to know
that song, showing either that the singer had
travelled far or was one of those quick minds that
caught all things new; the merrier the notes the more
he thought of those days. And the more he thought
of them the more he regretted that they were all gone
over the hills. A melancholy came into Gonsalvo’s
voice. Each line of the song seemed to roll him
further and further away from that young man
that had known so long ago the latest air from
Provence. Ah well. Such feelings must come
sooner or later to all of us. But Gonsalvo was not
a meditative man, and to him they came most rarely,
troubling him scarcely ever; now they all welled
up in him at the sound of that song, and at the
thought that for aught Gonsalvo knew it was no
longer the latest air. His melancholy deepened.
His memory drew those merry lines from the past,
with a tone as sad as the groans of an aged man,
who winds up a pail of bright water out of a well,
with pain in all his old joints.

Gulvarez no more than Gonsalvo knew the Pro-
vencal tongue, yet the lilt of the tune should have

262 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

told him that it was a merry song. But he watched
his host’s face with care and saw there what he heard
in his tones; he therefore mopped his eyes with a
kerchief, thinking to please Gonsalvo. Then Gon-
salvo sought to explain that it was a merry song,
and was highly thought of as such in better years
if not now; and all amongst his explanations Gul-
varez thrust in words, seeking to explain his ker-
chief. Why was it that during all this time Mi-
randola seemed to sit there smiling? For her lips
never moved. Then the Lady of the Tower, seeing
that the silence, that had hung so heavily over
them after Mirandola’s remark, had not been bet-
tered, though broken, by Gonsalvo’s merry song,
rose from her seat and beckoned to Mirandola ;
and, closing the explanations of the men with fair
words to Gulvarez, went thence with her daughter.
So passed the third day of that illness that so
strangely afflicted the Duke.

And the fourth day came; and on this day Father
Joseph was seen riding away on his mule. When
Father Joseph walked over to the Tower, and for
a few days left the little village, the folk sinned there
gladly; but when he rode away on a mule, they
knew not whither, and was not back by evening, a
piety came uneasily down on the village, and not
only no one sinned but they scarcely sang; for none
gave absolution like Father Joseph.

In the Tower it was as yesterday, for an anxious
hush still hung over all the house because of the
dreadful thing it had done to the Duke. And none

GONSALVO SINGS 263

dared trouble that hush by suggesting a new thing;
and events came slowly. The Duke’s strength still
gained gradually, and his magical fury gradually
faded, if indeed it faded at all. Mirandola still saw
a glitter of wrath in his eyes, whenever she opened
his door, which only faded when he saw it was her,
bringing him food or drink. And the wrath with
which he watched the door seemed to Mirandola
magnificent ; for it seemed to her that no more than
lightnings or splendid dawns would he turn aside
to let mean things have their way, or assist gross
things to prosper; and she had seen gross men
and watched mean ways, and had had a fear that for
aught that she could do she would come amongst
grossness and meanness in the end; so what was
crude and common would teach the mundane way
once more to the rare and fine.

They spoke little; for the Duke’s wrath would
not easily allow him to speak to any of that house
that had so strangely wronged him, although it could
not rage at Mirandola.

Downstairs Gulvarez said tender things to her;
but, as it was ever his way to say these the loudest,
she hushed him with one hand raised and an anxious
air, lest the Duke should hear any sound and be
moved to yet fiercer humours. And none knew how
the Duke fared except Mirandola, and she told all
truthfully; yet always with an anxiety in her voice
which made all the future uncertain and checked
Gulvarez’ boldness, as though he had suddenly come
to the verge of a country that was full of a damp

264 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

white mist. Amongst such uncertainties this day
passed like the last.

The fifth day of the Duke’s strange illness came.
A troubled piety reigned in the village, and Father
Joseph was still far away, being then with Ramon
Alonzo in the magician’s wood. In the Tower none
knew if the Duke’s illness abated, but now he had
grown accustomed to Mirandola’s entry, and knew
her step and her hand upon the door, and no longer
watched the door with glittering wrath whenever
he saw it move. But none knew if he would yet
suffer the approach of any other, and none touched
his door that day but Mirandola.

Gulvarez enquired of her how the Duke fared.

“T fear,’ she said, “he will never forgive our
poor house.”

“T will speak to him later,” said Gulvarez.

“I trust he may forgive you for bringing him
here,” she said. “If so, he may well forgive us.”

It was thus that Mirandola would speak to Gul-
varez. Such words did not at first seem wrong, but
there was no comfort in them. Rather they stirred
anxieties, and, on thinking over them afterwards,
it often seemed as though nothing less than a slight
to Gulvarez were hid in them. Mirandola’s mother
spoke to her about this, telling her how she ought
to converse with Gulvarez; and Mirandola listened
readily. Still it was a hushed house, in which it
seemed that nothing dared happen until the Duke
was cured. So the fifth day passed. And the next
day brought back Father Joseph, tired on his mule

GONSALVO SINGS 265

to his little house by the village. And the folk re-
joiced and made merry when they saw him riding
their way in the afternoon, and through the eve-
ning they kept up their rejoicing, and into the starry
night with dancing and song; and of this came
things that are not for this tale.

But over the Tower a hush still brooded heavily. .
It was like a prisoner who waits in the dark for his
trial. He knows not how great his crime will prove
to have been. Again and again he guesses its con-
sequences. Meanwhile his judge eats and sleeps and
has not yet heard of him. Something of this un-
certainty hung over all that household until they
knew how gravely the Duke had been wronged and
if he would surely recover. And still none dare
approach him but Mirandola. And on this day the
Duke spoke with her, not merely answering ques-
tions that she asked of him concerning the food or
drink that he desired, but talking of small things
distant from that house. And she sat so long while
they talked that all the house grew troubled; for
only from Mirandola could they learn how the Duke
fared. All the while that she tarried their alarm
was growing, and when at length she appeared it
was anxious questions they asked of her.

The Duke was no worse, she said.

“And his anger? What of his anger?” one asked
of her tremulously.

“He has his whims,’ she said; “but he is not
angry.”

She returned to the room in which her parents

266 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

sat with Gulvarez. And there she found a certain
restraint as they spoke with her, for the same
strange thing all at once had surprised all three; and
this was that in the sore perplexity that had come
upon them, and of which they had thought so deeply
for six days, the key seemed suddenly in the hands
of Mirandola. She knew how he fared, knew that
he would recover; above all she seemed to be able
to soothe his wrath. Terrible menaces seemed to
be lifting, of which the worst was that the Duke
should die; but after that they feared almost as
much his recovery, dreading what he might do for
the insult that had been offered him. But now it
seemed, at least to Gonsalvo, and was indeed obvious
to all, that if Mirandola could thus soothe his wrath
it might be averted from all of them. Then Gon-
salvo and Gulvarez walked in the garden and planned
how, when the Duke should be recovered, Mirandola
should lead him out to the road with his bowmen,
so that he should pass neither his host nor his friend,
who would be at that time in the garden; and the
Duke should not see Gulvarez till long after, when
his wrath was abated, and Gonsalvo never again.
From this planning they soon returned well satisfied ;
Gonsalvo, his mind now eased of a burden that had
weighed on it for six days, was telling volubly of old
hunts he had known; while Gulvarez meditated gal-
lant phrases, and stepped gaily into the house all
ready to utter them to Mirandola. But Mirandola
was gone again to sit and talk with the Duke.

CHAP REIKO XX LX

THE CASKET OF SILVER AND OAK IS GIVEN TO
SENOR GULVAREZ

HIS was the seventh day of the Duke’s illness.
Of his wrath none knew, for he had no wrath

for Mirandola, and none else durst venture into his
presence to see. But his illness was waning fast, and
it was clear that all his strength would soon be re-
covered. Soon he would be up and away. “And
then,” thought Gonsalvo, “Father Joseph must come,
and farewell to my fair fields.” So he went that
morning to see the three fields that he loved, with
the dew still on them, and the shade of the forest
lying still over half of them. He had gone wonder-
ing if they could be really so fair as they seemed
to be in the picture his memory had of them. Alas!
They were. It would have cheered him to find that
they were but common fields. But no, there was a
glamour about them; something dwelling perhaps
in the forest seemed to have stolen out and enchanted
them; they lay there deep as ever in their old
mystery, under a gauzy grey of spiders’ webs and
dew. And that old feeling lay over them all in the
morning, which we feel when we speak of home.

267

268 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

They were very ordinary fields, lying under dew in
the morning; and very ordinary tears came into Gon-
salvo’s eyes, for he was a simple man, and the roots
of the grasses that grew there seemed tangled up
somehow or other all amongst his heart-strings.

Looking there long at his fields he became aware
of a man approaching across them and looking care-
fully at them as he came. It was Gulvarez. He also
had come to see if they were really as fair as had
been thought.

The sun now came over the tips of the trees, and
Gonsalvo stared at it awhile. “Very bright,” he
said, as Gulvarez came up.

“Aye,” said Gulvarez jovially, “a merry day.”
And then he spake more gravely. ‘Yonder stile,” he
said, “will need much repairing.”

It was an old stile whose wood was damp and
soft, and moss and strange things grew on it. Grand
old timbers had made it, and it had been thus through
all Gonsalvo’s time.

“It was a good stile once,’

“Maybe,” said Gulvarez.

Gonsalvo sighed.

“They are fair fields, are they not?” Gonsalvo
said.

“Aye,” said Gulvarez. But he looked all round
at them before he answered, which somehow sad-
dened Gonsalvo.

“It is time for breakfast,” Gonsalvo said.

“Aye, ” said Gulvarez, again with that jovial voice,
“I have a merry appetite.”

3

said Gonsalvo.

THE CASKET 269

So back they went together from those fair
fields, and the morning seemed to shine bright for
Gulvarez only.

The Lady of the Tower awaited them, but not
Mirandola, nor did she appear while they break-
fasted. Gulvarez, refreshed by the morning and
charmed at the sight of those fields, was full of a
joviality that he would have expressed by gallant
sayings told to a beautiful girl. But where was
Mirandola?

“She is taking her breakfast with the Duke,” said
Mirandola’s mother.

So Gulvarez waited. And the morning went by
and still she did not come, and the stress of impa-
tience caused a change in the nature of Gulvarez’
joviality, as the nature of fruit changes when it
ferments.

She came to them in the early afternoon with
little in her face to show whether the Duke fared well
or ill, and saying nothing of him until asked by her
father.

“He prospers,” she said, “and will take the road
to-morrow.”

“He will go?” said Gonsalvo.

“Yes, to-morrow,” said Mirandola.

“Ts he wroth with us yet?” said Gonsalvo.

“I know not,” she answered.

They would know to-morrow. Gonsalvo thought
again of his plan, and went into the garden with
Gulvarez to discuss how Mirandola should lead the
Duke to the road while he and his lady and Gulvarez

270 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

were elsewhere. Within the house her mother looked
at Mirandola and was about to speak, but in all the
moments that she looked at her daughter she saw
no sign of the matter upon which she would have
spoken, so closed her lips again and did not speak.
When Gonsalvo and Gulvarez came back from the
garden Mirandola had gone again with more food
and drink to the Duke.

And now Gulvarez sat silent, speaking indeed
when spoken to, but always returning to brood, as
it seemed to Gonsalvo, upon the same theme, what-
ever that theme might be. He seemed to be thinking
some thought, or working upon some problem, that
was surprisingly new, and that could only be fol-
lowed with difficulty, and yet could not be left. Once
he opened his lips to speak, but what he was going
to say seemed so strange to him that in the end he
said nothing. So he sat there brooding upon his
new thought, a man unaccustomed to thinking, and
all the more perplexed at having to brood alone, yet
the thought was too strange to share it with Gon-
salvo; it seemed too near to madness. And, as he
brooded there, from amongst the things that he
could see in his mind the three fields faded away.

Next morning the Duke rose. The four chiefs of
his bowmen, who all that week had moved about the
house seldom speaking to any, like stately silent
shadows, showed now an alertness such as comes to
the swallows when they know that September is here;
and all was prepared for departure.

The Duke had breakfasted before he descended.

THE CASKET 271

He was all ready for the road. Nothing remained
but that Mirandola, meeting him at the foot of the
stairs, should lead him by a path through an arm
of the forest, the four bowmen following, and out
on to the road at a point at which Peter should
have his horse for him; when, not seeing his host or
Gulvarez where he would be given to expect them,
he would ride away, and Mirandola would carry
any farewells for him. These were the plans of
Gonsalvo, whereby he hoped to escape the wrath
of the Duke if that magical anger still smouldered.
He had told them to Mirandola overnight, and she
had dutifully hearkened and promised to do the bid-
ding of her father. “All will be well,” he had said
to Gulvarez. But Gulvarez had maintained that
silence of his that was troubled by his new brood-
ings.

The step of the Duke was heard on the stair; be-
hind him tramped his four bowmen. Mirandola
looked up.

“Your horse is on the road at the end of the
path,” she said. “I will show you.”

“Is it not at the door?” he asked.

“T think my father sent it to the end of the path,”
she answered. She gave no reason; there was none.
It was the weak part of Gonsalvo’s scheme. She
watched his face a moment with anxiety. But a
glad smile came on his face.

“We will go by the path,” he said.

Great indeed was the wrong that had been done
him in that house, but it pleased the Duke to think,

272 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

and he invented many reasons to help his conten-
tion, that Mirandola could have no part in it. From
this he had come to believe that she had no real
part in that house, but was something almost elfin
that had haunted it out of the forest, or something
that had come for a little while to cheer its hateful
rooms, as a ray from the sun may briefly enter a
dungeon. Indeed it is hard to say what the Duke
was thinking, for his brain was all awhirl. What-
ever he thought was unjust, for Mirandola was the
one light to him in the dark inhospitality of that
house. Whereas—but never mind: it all happened
so long ago. |

So they went by the path. It ran through a part
of the garden; then’to the wild, then turned from
the heather and rocks and ran awhile through the
forest and out to the high road. It was the way that
Peter and the dairymaids took, for it brought them
into the Tower by a small door at the back, but
the road went by the front door.

The Duke walked slowly, full of thought and
quite silent. He had looked long for this day, when
he could go forth again a hale man once more, and
be in the sunlight and hear the birds and ride away,
and never have any more to do with that house.
Yet here were the sunlight and birds, and the house
was behind him, and his horse was waiting for him
a little way off, and none of the joy he had looked
for came near him at all. He was free of that house
at last and unhappy to be free. Never had he
thought so much or thought less clearly, for all his

THE CASKET 273

thoughts were contradicting each other; and Miran-
dola’s eyes made it harder to think than ever. They
were happy eyes, caring little, it seemed, for his
trouble. And what was his trouble? Something
profoundly wrong with the bright morning, that
could not be easily cured; and the future coming
up all dull and listless for years and years and years.
Indeed his brain was in a whirl.

“You are glad to be leaving us?” said Mirandola
as they crossed the strip of heather.

“Yes,” said the Duke, “I am sorry.”

It was the Duke that thought over what he had
answered more than Mirandola. She said no more,
but he pondered on his own words. He had said
he was sorry. Yes, that was the truth of it. An
accursed house no doubt, and yet it had hold of his
heart-strings. Sighing he walked on slowly and
came to the forest with Mirandola beside him,
and the four chiefs of his bowmen a short way be-
hind. And now his thoughts became fewer and
simpler.

“Señorita,” he said, “are you glad that I am
leaving you?”

“Ves,” she said, “I am sorry.”

She had repeated his own confused words!
Which did she mean?

He turned round to his four men, who halted
to hear his order.

“Hunt rabbits,” he said.

And at once the chiefs of the bowmen disappeared
in the forest; and the Duke with Mirandola walked

274 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

on in silence. And no words came to him to say
what was weighing upon his heart to this flashing
elfin lady. He that ruled over the deeps of so great
a forest had many affairs to weigh and discharged
them with many commands, and his words had
earned from men a repute for wisdom; but as for
the fawns he loved, that slipped noiselessly across
clearings; and wide-winged herons that came down
at evening along a slant of the air; foxes, eagles,
and roe-deer; he knew not their language. And
now he felt as he had sometimes felt, watching alone
by the clearings, when the things of the wild came
gliding by through a hush that seemed all theirs ;
and he loved their beautiful shapes and their shy
wild ways, and his heart went out towards them; but
there lay the gulf between him and them across
which no words could call. So he felt now as he
looked on Mirandola, fearing that words were not
shaped for what he would say. He halted and looked
long on her, and no words came to his lips. They
were near the road at the spot where his horse
waited, and he feared that they soon might part,
with all unsaid. But those proud eyes of his were
saying all he would say; the twinkle of merriment
in Mirandola’s eyes died down under the gaze of
them, and a graver look came to her face, and her
merry look did not return till he spoke and she heard
common human words again.

“Will you marry me, Mirandola?” he said at last.

It was then that the twinkle dawned again in her
eyes.

THE CASKET 275

“I am engaged to Señor Gulvarez,” she said.

“Gulvarez!’ he said.

“Yes, my father arranged it,” said Mirandola.

“Gulvarez shall hang,” said the Duke.

“I thought he was your friend,” said Mirandola.

“Aye,” said the Duke, “truly. But he shall
hang.”

And one last favour she did for Gulvarez, that had
had so few favours of her hitherto; for when she
saw that the Duke was truly bent upon hanging him,
and was indeed earnest in the matter, she besought
him to put it aside, and would not answer the ques-
tion that he had asked her until he had sworn that
Gulvarez should go unhung. Then she consented.

And now from the obscurer part of the garden,
where they had lurked while the Duke went by, Gon-
salvo and Gulvarez came forth. Gonsalvo walked
with all the lightness of one from whom a burden
has slipped; and Gulvarez with downcast head and
moody air, and silence grudgingly broken when at
all: so they walked in the garden.

“He never saw us,” said Gonsalvo cheerily.

“No,” said Gulvarez.

Little light shells crunched under their feet along
the path while Gonsalvo waited for a further
answer.,

“He is gone,” said Gonsalvo.

This time Gulvarez made no answer at all, and
the shells crunched on in silence.

Gonsalvo believed that all things were as bright
as his own mood, but when he perceived that this

276 THE CHARWOMAN'S SHADOW

was not so with Gulvarez he spoke to him of the
three fair fields, though it cost him a sigh to do it.
And even this made no rift in the heavy mood of
Gulvarez.

“They are fair, are they not?” asked Gonsalvo.

“Yes, yes,” said Gulvarez impatiently, and fell
to nursing again that curious silence.

And at this Gonsalvo wondered, until he won-
dered at a new thing. For all of a sudden he won-
dered, “Where is Peter ?”

Peter was holding the horse of the Duke a little
way down the road : why had he not returned? Was
the man straying away to wanton in idleness when
there was work to be done in the stables? He
peered about in vexation, and still no sign of Peter.

The Duke must have reached the road long
since, and ridden away : Peter should have returned
immediately. No work, no wages, he thought.
And in his anger his mind dwelt long on Peter.

And then he thought: “Where ever is Miran-
dola ?”

“It is curious,” he said to Gulvarez, “I do not see
Mirandola returning.”

Almost a look of contempt seemed to colour the
gloom of Gulvarez as he turned to the Lord of the
Tower.

“No,” he said.

“It is curious,” said Gonsalvo.

And an uneasiness began to grow in his mind
slowly, until it was two silent men that walked in
the garden together.

THE CASKET 277

“A little this way,” said Gonsalvo, going through
a gap in the hedge to a knoll that rose in a field
outside the garden, from which one saw more of the
road. Gulvarez moodily followed. And there was
the Duke’s horse, and Peter waiting; not even won-
dering, as his whole attitude showed, but holding the
horse in the road and merely waiting, as flowers and
vegetables wait. “Still there,” said Gonsalvo. And
Gulvarez grunted.

There was nothing to gaze at; a patient man and
an almost patient horse; and presently Gonsalvo
turned from them, and came with Gulvarez slowly
back to the garden. They walked again upon the
small sea-shells.

And then, with the summer burning in their faces,
with the splendours of wonderful hopes and imagi-
nations, led by such inspirations as trouble the hills
in Spring, came Mirandola and the Duke of Shadow
Valley, together back from the forest.

“He returns,’ said Gonsalvo.

Gulvarez nodded his head.

“But he comes back,” Gonsalvo said.

And on walked Mirandola and the Duke of
Shadow Valley, as though they had crossed the
border of a land full of the morning and were walk-
ing further and further into its golden brightness,
which lit their faces more and more as they went,
while behind them lay colder lands, lonelier and lack-
ing enchantment.

And Gonsalvo said nothing but little words of
surprise, and Gulvarez said nothing at all, for his

278 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

gloomy mood was set for these very events. But
the Lady of the Tower as she passed by a high
window, looking out saw all at once Mirandola’s
story. Soon these five met by their three separate
ways, at the door that led to the garden. And the
Lady of the Tower looking out on the huge gloom of
Gulvarez and the radiance of Mirandola, while her
husband repeated phrases and questions all shrill
with surprise, recalled a thunderstorm she had seen
long since, coming over the sea at sunrise, while
small white birds ran crying along the coast.

And then with a gasp Gonsalvo’s eyes were
opened to the obvious situation, which had long
been clear to Gulvarez. They entered the house,
Gonsalvo walking behind in silence. My story
draws near to its close.

In the room where the boar-spears hung they
planned the future—as far as men ever do—for
they turned blindly and confidently towards the
strange dark ways to speak as though they could see
them; and would have spoken, but the Duke talked
instead, fervidly, gaily, and lyrically: it was a great
while before Gonsalvo had opportunity to touch
on the matter that had long lain near his heart, the
matter of the casket and Mirandola’s dowry.

“As for dowry,” said the Duke, “give me...”
but he spoke incoherently, naming foolish things, a
lock of her hair, an eyelash, a common fan.

“Then Your Magnificence,” said Gonsalvo, when
opportunity came to speak again, “accept at least that
casket which, had the fortunes of my house been

THE CASKET 279

grander, had long been filled with gold; for it was
ever destined for my daughter’s dowry, though still
by ill fortune empty as you shall see.”

And he took its key and opened the casket there,
showing it to be empty as he had said, and was
about to hold it forth in his two hands to the Duke.
But Mirandola said: “Father, it was promised to
Sefior Gulvarez.”

Gonsalvo, as he bowed forward with his casket,
stopped with a sudden jerk and looked with amaze
at his daughter. But Mirandola’s eyes under curved
black lashes remained unwavering, and she said
no more. And after awhile, in silence, and puzzled
at his own action, Gonsalvo handed the casket to
Gulvarez, who took it without any thanks, midmost
in that courteous age, and put it under his arm and
walked from the room and went away from the
house. And then the Lady of the Tower would
have spoken, but the Duke spoke again. It was more
like the words of such songs as they sometimes sang
in youth, upon moonlight nights, in the Golden Age,
to the tune of a mandolin, than any sober prevision
of the future. And as he spoke, thoughts so swam
through Gonsalvo’s mind, so swift and so unrelated,
that he longed with a great yearning for Father
Joseph, who had such an easeful way with unruly
thoughts, and wondered upon what pretext he could
summon him, for the need of a priest was not yet.
And then he thought of his son, and that business
of gold for the dowry, and the propriety of acquaint-
ing him with his sister’s betrothal. The occasion

280 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

was well worthy of a letter. And he slipped from
the room and sent Peter in haste for the priest.
Plump and mellow and calm, in due course Father
Joseph appeared; and his calmness came to Gonsalvo
like snow upon torrid sands. And they greeted and
spoke awhile, and Father Joseph said soothing things
that were easy to understand. And this was the
letter that was written: “My dear Son, a thing has
befallen so strange that I am readier to marvel at it
than to acquaint you with the truth of it or to tell
you how it befell, if indeed this could be told, but it
is of those things whose ways are inscrutable and
that befall as they may and are not to be traced to
their origins, or to be studied by any of the arts of
philosophy, but are only indeed to be marvelled at.
The Duke of Shadow Valley is betrothed to your
sister and will marry her. That is as it is. Ask me
not how it became so, for I am no philosopher to
unravel the causes of events; and methinks that many
events are only made for our wonder, and have no
cause and no meaning but that we should wonder at
them, as indeed I do at this event most heartily.
Now this being as I have said, with the aid of Father
Joseph, whose pen has been most ready in this mat-
ter, there is no need any longer of that business which
we have discussed heretofore. Return home there-
fore with all speed and abide with us. But of all
earthly needs place this the foremost: to wed in due
course (and may the Saints whose care it is hasten
the happy occasion) only the daughter of some illus-
trious house; for the Duke of Shadow Valley is, as

THE CASKET 281

the world knows, the loved companion of the King’s
self, and they have hunted the magpie together with
their falcons, and have strolled abroad when all the
city slept, seeking such adventures together as were
appropriate to their youth. Bring no shame there-
fore on so illustrious a head by marriage with any
house not well established in honour before the com-
ing of the Moors. Your loving father, Gonsalvo of
the Tower and Rocky Forest.”

After the dictation of so long a letter and the
work of signing it with his own hand, and all his
wonderings and perplexities, Gonsalvo sat in his
chair so much bewildered that he could not wholly
extricate his thoughts, nor could even Father Joseph
make their meaning perfectly clear to him. And in
this perplexed state there came to him all of a sudden
one vivid, lucid thought of his three fair fields. He
rose, and though Father Joseph would have assisted
him with his counsel, he went forth in silence out
of the house alone. And soon he was walking
on those remembered grasses, dewy now with the
evening.

With folded hands in a chair Father Joseph
ordered his thoughts. But to Gonsalvo, pacing his
fields again, there came a calm along the slanting
rays, and out of the turf he trod, and from the cool
of evening and glitter of leaves; it came from that
quiet moment in which day ceases to burn, and it
welled up out of memories of other evenings that had
illumined those fields. Far off he saw the form of
Gulvarez riding away, bent on his horse, his two

282 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

men-at-arms behind him: he turned to call to him
some word as he went: he filled his lungs to hail
him; but turned instead to some flowers among the
grasses that the sun had touched in his fields.

CHAPTER XXX

THE END OF THE GOLDEN AGE

HEN Ramon Alonzo read his father’s letter

a fear came into his day-dreams, and he

stood a long while wondering. Peter stood before
him gazing into his face, and Anemone by his side
was quietly reading his thoughts; and both saw
trouble there, rushing up black and suddenly to
darken the coming years. And there he stayed while
two phrases went up and down amidst his dismayed
thoughts—“the daughter of some illustrious house”
and “well established in honour before the coming of
the Moors.” What should he do? Were those two
phrases to wither away his happiness? And yet what
way of escape? Hope herself seemed blind to it.

“What is the matter ?”” Anemone said, as he stood
there still and silent.

“Tt is from my father,” he said.

And she knew then that his father would not re-
ceive her, but she said nothing.

“Peter,” he said after a little while, “I must go
on alone. Guard my lady.”

To her he turned to give excuses and reasons for
leaving her awhile in the forest; but she left all to
him and needed no reasons.

283

284 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

A little way further they went on together, Peter
walking behind; and then Anemone and Ramon
“Alonzo parted as though it had been for years,
though they were only a few hundred paces from the
Tower, and Ramon Alonzo had sworn to return to
her long before evening. Then he left her and went
down to the edge of the forest where it touched the
rocky land at the end of the garden; and Peter as-
sured Anemone that his young master would soon
return, for that he ever kept his word to the last
letter of it: but she was full of heaviness from that
dark news that had troubled Ramon Alonzo,
although she knew not the words of it, yet she felt
it as on sultry days in summer we feel the thunder
before we have seen a cloud.

When Ramon Alonzo came to the edge of the
forest he hid himself carefully by an old oak that
he knew; then he looked towards the garden.

And soon he saw walking on those remembered
paths his sister with the Duke of Shadow Valley.
They were coming towards him and he saw her
clearly, a new gaiety in her dress, and a look in her
face that was almost strange to him. Then they
turned back again. The next time that they ap-
proached he watched her face to find a moment when
he could show her that he was there without the
Duke perceiving him. And for long he only saw that
new look increasing the spell of her beauty; and
though the Duke looked seldom toward the forest,
and had she glanced for a' moment he might have
signed to her, yet he caught not one of those glances

THE END OF THE GOLDEN AGE 285

roving from under her lashes, and the pair went back
again to a further part of the garden.

The Duke was talking to Mirandola, that hand-
some head bending towards her; and suddenly she
lifted her head, looking far beyond the garden, and
her gaze was out over the forest where Ramon
Alonzo hid. And suddenly he waved his kerchief to
her by the hollow old bole of that oak by which they
had played of old. She saw the sign and at once
walked nearer to him, the Duke walking beside her.
And when he saw that tall and slender figure in
black velvet and sky-blue plume coming towards him
with her, he signed to her again and again to come
alone; but they still walked on, and left the end of
the garden, and crossed the strip of rocky heathery
land. They found him standing by the old hollowed
oak. He doffed his hat to the Duke, then hastily said
what he had tried to sign: “Mirandola, I have a
word to say to you apart.”

And she said: “My secrets are his.”

Then Ramon Alonzo felt that his judgment had
not been trusted, and that Mirandola, his sister,
should have doubted that he had good grounds for
his request troubled the lad to the heart. And when
she made no motion to draw apart with him alone
he blurted out in his pique every word of his father’s
letter, though the Duke was standing beside him,
petulantly bent on showing how right he had been
to ask her to hear him alone. And then he told her
mournfully how he was engaged to wed a maiden
whom he had rescued from the magician, and who

286 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

was fairer than the earliest flowers on bright March
mornings in Spain.

When the Duke heard this he smiled.

“And she is of no noble house?” he said.

“Aye, there it is,” said Ramon Alonzo.

“Where is she?” asked Mirandola in her quiet
kind voice, whose very tones seemed to know her
brother’s heart, as the echoes of chimes know
belfries.

“There in the forest,” he said.

Mirandola looked at the Duke.

“Let us see her,” he said.

So Ramon Alonzo turned and led the way, and
the betrothed pair followed together. He strode on
as though all alone in the wood with his sorrows,
disappointed at having had no talk with Mirandola
alone, for he had had much hope from her wisdom
if he could have talked with her thus, as so often he
had talked when they were younger, smoothing the
difficulties of tinier troubles. So he walked down-
cast and moody, though once he fancied that he heard
behind him the sound of soft laughter.

When Ramon Alonzo came where Anemone
waited with Peter he was silent yet, extending an
arm towards her where she stood smiling, fair, as
indeed he had said, as any flower looking up at the
morning through dews of the earliest Spring. The
Duke doffed his hat and bowed, and Mirandola went
up and kissed Anemone. “So I must wed illus-
triously,” said Ramon Alonzo in bitterness,

During one of those brief moments that Destiny

THE END OF THE GOLDEN AGE 287

uses often to perfect an event with which she will
shape the years, none of them spoke. Then Anem-
one slowly turned towards Aragona, towards her
own people that rejected her.

“Hold,” said the Duke, “I will write to the Just
Monarch. Bless his heart, he will do this for us.”

None knew till the letter was written quite what
would be asked, nor what the Just and Glorious
Monarch would do; yet suddenly all seemed decided.

Back then they went to the Tower; Mirandola,
the Duke, and Ramon Alonzo. But not Anemone,
for Ramon Alonzo knew not yet what to say of her
to his father, though the Duke had suddenly lit his
hopes again and they shone down vistas of years.
So with one swift thought, that long pondering
would not have bettered, he remembered Father
Joseph, and commanded Peter to lead her to the good
man’s little house. This Peter did, and there she
was lodged awhile and honourably tended; and, had
her memory held any more than hints of those dark
ages in the sinister house in the wood, Father Joseph
would have been, as he nearly was, surprised; and
this, so well knew he man and his pitiful story, he
had not been since long and long ago when he was
first a curate and all the world was new to him. In
the Tower, while his parents were greeting Ramon
Alonzo and hearing halting fragments of his story
whose whole theme he must hide awhile, the Duke
of Shadow Valley with toil and discomfort, yet still
with his own hand, inscribed a letter to the Vic-
torious King. Therein he told his comrade in many

288 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

a merriment the glad news of his happiness, then
added a humble request concerning Anemone,
and closed with a renewal of the devotion that
his house ever felt towards that illustrious, line.
And now with meagre spoils his bowmen were com-
ing in, for he had bidden them hunt rabbits; and
to one of these he gave at once this letter, bidding
him haste to its splendid destination. And the bow-
man hastened as he had been commanded, and trav-
elled for all the remainder of that day and through
most of the night, so that he saw the next sunset glint
on the spires of that palace that was the glory and joy
of the Golden Age. And there the most high king,
the Victorious Monarch, sat on a throne of velvet
and wood and gold; and lights had been brought but
lately, and two men stood by the throne holding
strange torches that the King might see to do any
new thing; but the King had naught to do but to
ponder the old cares over, for he had wide domin-
ion. Then into the hall came the bowman.

When the King read he rejoiced. Then he rose
and gave a command, commanding preparations.
And these preparations were for his own presence at
the wedding of the Duke and Mirandola. But
amongst his rejoicings, and those august prepara-
tions, and the grave cares he inherited, he forgot
not his friend’s petition and the humble affair of
Anemone. So again he commanded, bidding his pen
be brought. So one bore the pen down the hall
ən a cushion of scarlet and yellow, which are the
colours of Spain. And the Victorious King took up

THE END OF THE GOLDEN AGE 289

the pen and wrote upon parchment, writing out with
his own hand the humble name of Anemone. And
in that illustrious hall, the pride of the Golden Age,
he wrote an ample pardon for her low birth, and set
his name to the pardon that he had written and
sealed it all with the glorious seal of Spain. And
the pardon was carried then, on the cushion of scarlet
and yellow, to that Archbishop that waited upon the
King, watching his spiritual needs from moment to
moment. And when the pardon was come before
the Archbishop he raised his hands and blessed it.

The bowman bore the pardon back to the Duke,
who gave it to Ramon Alonzo. Thenceforth it be-
came treason to speak of the low birth of Anemone,
nor may historians allude to it to this day: that par-
don had annulled it; she became of illustrious lineage.
And in their loyal avoidance of any reference to
Anemone’s occupation the Spanish people let drop
into disuse the very name of charwoman, lest inad-
vertently they should ever apply it where it was trea-
son to do so. Still they speak there of broom-lady,
woman of the pail, crockery-breaker, floor-warden,
scrub-mistress, but never of charwoman, unless a
light and unreliable spirit blown over the Pyrenees
by a south wind out of Spain has grossly misin-
formed me.

What more remains to be told of the fortunes of
Ramon Alonzo and of the allied House of the Duke
of Shadow Valley? Of the wedding of Mirandola
good old books tell, in words whose very rhythms
dance down the ages with a stately merriment and a

290 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

mirthful march that are well worthy of their most
happy theme. To them I leave that chronicling.
In London alone the lucky wayfarer going north by
the Charing Cross Road, and taking fortunate turn-
ings, will find in the Antiquareum at the end of Old
Zembla Street sufficient of these to his purpose.
There, if the old curator dreams not too deeply of
bygone splendours of the enchanted days, as may
happen on long dark Saturdays, he will find the books
that he needs. For there sleep in their mellowed
leather on those shelves, and laugh in their sleep as
they dream of the Golden Age, such books as For-
tunate Revelries, The Glorious Waning of the
Golden Age, The Sunset of Chivalry, and Happy
Days of the Illustrious. And all these tell of that
wedding, illumining the event with a dignity and a
splendour such as our age considers presumptuous
for any affair of man. I make no mention of such
books as may be stored in Madrid, nor such as ped-
lars are likely still to be selling in hamlets of un-
frequented valleys of Spain. Suffice it that no full
tale is told of the Golden Age that does not revel
happily over that day. Of the wedding of Ramon
Alonzo and Anemone the good and glorious books
tell a briefer tale, for no archbishops performed the
holy rite, and the King’s self had returned to the
burden of his dominion. Yet were they well wed;
for Father Joseph did this with his own hands, and
blessed them out of the store of his kind old years.
And she, with the years of magic cast away, aged
as we all age, slowly and mortally. And all those

THE END OF THE GOLDEN AGE 291

golden books agree on one quaint exaggeration, and
record, sometimes with curious and solemn oath,
that she and Ramon Alonzo lived happily ever after.

And what of the magician: he whose strange
threads have run so much through all the web of this
story? He sent no spell to follow after Anemone
and her lover, as for a while they had feared, but
went all alone to his room that was sacred to magic,
and took from the dust and darkness of a high shelf
a volume in which he had written all he had learned
about boar-hunting ; and indeed no more was known
of that art in any land, for he that had taught him
had followed the boar well. In this he read all
that day and all the night, assured that therein was
the manifest way to happiness that all philosophers
sought. But about the third day, when none re-
turned to him, and he was quite alone, and he felt it
was vain to look for another now who should be
worthy to receive from him the tremendous secrets
of old, he rose from his book and said, “The years
grow late.” He went then to his tower and quaffed
one gulp of that fluid that was named elixir vitae,
and, carrying the bottle to that passage that for so
long Anemone scrubbed, he cast it heavily down
upon the stone. And then he took from a box a
flute of reed, and cloaked himself and went out of
his magical house.

He went a few paces into the wood, then raised
the reed to his lips. He blew one bar upon it of
curious music, then waited listening eagerly. And
there came to his ears the scurry of little things,

292 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

nimble, elvish, and sprightly, over dead leaves of the
wood. At that he strode away, going swiftly north-
wards, and there followed him all manner of mag-
ical things: fays, imps, and fauns, and all such chil-
dren of Pan.

In the open lands he raised his pipe again and
blew on it two strange notes, which seemed for a
while to haunt the air all round him, then they
drifted slowly afar. And to that call responded the
things of the wold, tiny enchanted folk from many
an elf-mound and many a fairy ring; they joined
the fantastic group that had come from the deeps of
the wood, and followed after the Master. And
with him went old shadows, some taken from earthly
folk, and some that seemed cast upon other fields
than ours by other lights than our Sun. He led them
on through all the beauty of Spain. On the high
hills he blew those two notes once more; and all that
had their sole dwelling in moonlight and river-mist,
or in the deep romance that overflows from old
tales, told at evening in glamour of firesides, came
out from their lurking-places at the edge of the
olden years, and the dimness of distance, and the
other side of grey hills, and followed him over the
fields and valleys of Spain, till there came in sight
one morning the tips of the Pyrenees. Soon he was
crossing these with that wild crew behind him, and
butterflies that had followed him out of Spain. He
blew his strange notes once upon a peak, where his
tall cloaked figure looked tiny seen from the fields,
and his uncouth following only specks on the snow.

THE END OF THE GOLDEN AGE 293

Nevertheless Spain heard him; and as those notes
with their lure and persuasiveness went murmuring
among the villages, singing and promising I know
not what, and calling away as naught should call
from the calm and orderly ways, all the cathedrals
rang their bells against him. And the chimes filled
all the valleys and lapped over the rims of the hills,
till all the air of Spain was mellow and musical with
them, and yet the things of romance and mystery
went leaping after the Master, and yet more hearts
than ever told of it after turned that day towards the
peak and the pass of the Pyrenees. Through the
pass he went and the children of Pan followed.
Then they turned eastwards and away and away. In
Provence to-day there are tales that few folk tell,
yet still remembered in the hearts of the peasantry ;
they tell how once the things of the olden time came
that way from the mountains. And away they went
through Europe, leaving a track of fable and curious
folklore that, except where it is lost near cities and
highways, can be followed even yet. And after
them always went whatever was magical, and all
those things that dwelt in the olden time and are
only known to us through legend and fable.

On and on the magician strode, undaunted by rain
or night or rivers or mountains, going onward
guided by dawns, always due eastwards. Weariness
came on him and still he strode on, going homeless
by quiet hamlets in the night, and waking new de-
sires by the mere soft sound of his footfall and the
scurrying of little hooves that always followed his

294 THE CHARWOMAN’S SHADOW

journey. And there came upon him at last those
mortal tremors that are about the end of all earthly
journeys. He hastened then. And before the hu-
man destiny overtook him he saw one morning,
clear where the dawn had been, the luminous rock
of the bastions and glittering rampart that rose up
sheer from the frontier of the Country Beyond
Moon’s Rising. This he saw though his eyes were
dimming now with fatigue and his long sojourn on
earth; yet if he saw dimly he heard with no degree
of uncertainty the trumpets that rang out from those
battlements to welcome him after his sojourn, and
all that followed him gave back the greeting with
such cries as once haunted valleys at certain times
of the moon. Upon those battlements and by the
opening gates were gathered the robed Masters that
had trafficked with time and dwelt awhile on Earth,
and handed the mysteries on, and had walked round
the back of the grave by the way that they knew,
and were even beyond damnation. They raised their
hands and blessed him.

And now for him, and the creatures that followed
after, the gates were wide that led through the earth-
ward rampart of the Country Beyond Moon’s
Rising. He limped towards it with all his magical
following. He went therein, and the Golden Age
was over.

THE END

STACK
DUNSANY copy 1

THE CHARWOMAN'S SHADOW

Public Library of Brookline, Mass.

MAIN LIBRARY
361 Washington Street
Brookline, Mass. 02146

IMPORTANT
Leave cards in pocket

bs

STACK ;
DUNSANY copy 1

THE CHARWOMAN'S SHADOW

LoT
e nin

Ee,
RET
Mae Re
Oe mares

soa ene

acct

LEON a Saga Pent cpa he
E a meat

EA

us

eee
<a ents
GRESA

aa oo ees
ARKAA,

= <0

ORE

1 APh

Ns